NICHD Funds Major Effort To Determine Extent And Causes Of Stillbirth

NICHD Funds Major Effort To Determine Extent And Causes Of Stillbirth 
November 20, 2003

BETHESDA, MD (NIH) -- One of the National Institutes of Health has begun a 
concerted effort to determine the extent and causes of stillbirth -- the death 
of a fetus at 20 or more weeks of pregnancy. Each year, more than 26,000 
American women are reported to experience a stillbirth. 

To date, it has been difficult to collect information on stillbirths because the 
criteria for reporting them vary from state to state, and the issuance of fetal 
death certificates is not required. 

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) awarded 
nearly $3 million to fund a national research effort to study stillbirth in the 
United States. The award will fund the Stillbirth Research Collaborative 
Network, consisting of five research centers around the country and an 
independent data center to collect and analyze statistics on stillbirth. The 
research and statistical centers will collaborate with the NICHD to design 
studies to determine the causes of stillbirth. The five-year effort will also 
seek to develop standardized research guidelines for reporting and investigating 
stillbirths. 

The number of reported deaths from stillbirth is equal to that of all infant 
deaths combined. Some causes of stillbirth are known, such as diabetes or high 
blood pressure affecting the mother. However, the cause of more than half of all 
stillbirths is unknown. 

"Stillbirth is a problem that affects families everywhere, but little is known 
about why it happens," said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. "A 
better understanding of stillbirth may lead to ways to prevent these deaths." 

The five sites in the Stillbirth Research Collaborative Network will work with 
local hospitals to track stillbirths for the study. A variety of specialists, 
from obstetricians to grief counselors, will participate in the research 
initiative to support the mothers and their families, and to develop guidelines 
for studying and reporting stillbirths. 

"Parents who suffer the loss of a fetus are often desperate for information 
about the cause," said Catherine Spong, M.D., Chief of NICHD's Pregnancy and 
Perinatology Branch. "We hope this research will give us better information 
about stillbirth and its causes." 

The Stillbirth Research Collaborative Network grew out of the March 2001 NICHD 
workshop, Setting a Research Agenda for Stillbirth, which brought experts from 
the U.S. and several other countries together to address the serious, but under-
studied, problem of stillbirth. 

The Stillbirth Research Collaborative Network includes the following clinical 
investigators and research sites: Dr. Marshall Carpenter, Women and Infants 
Hospital of Rhode Island in Providence; Dr. Donald Dudley, University of Texas 
Health Sciences Center in San Antonio; Dr. George Saade, University of Texas 
Medical Branch at Galveston; Dr. Robert Silver, University of Utah in Salt Lake 
City; Dr. Barbara Stoll, Emory University in Atlanta, and Dr. Corette Parker, 
at the statistical center at Research Triangle Institute in Raleigh, North 
Carolina.