Maybe you've heard of the "back is best" campaign? Let's just say that I, probably like you, slept on my stomach when I was an infant. Then, researchers spent 30 years studying SIDS, learned many SIDS babies slept on their stomachs, the government instituted a campaign for doctors to teach parents about SIDS and today the SIDS rate has been cut in half due to the back is best campaign. Current stats show 2,500 babies per year are lost to SIDS.
26,000 babies per year are lost to stillbirth. 26,000! "Stillbirth has not received the same interest because the public underestimates its devastating toll and also tends to view it as inevitable," says Ruth Fretts, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Harvard Medical School and a leading stillbirth researcher. "Stillbirth is sometimes equated with miscarriage, which usually happens in the first 12 weeks. But while the majority of miscarriages are caused by genetic errors and cannot be prevented, stillbirths are often preventable; 14 percent of stillborn babies in the United States have congenital abnormalities, according to the March of Dimes."
People have this idea that the devastation of stillbirth is less because a stillborn baby dies before she is born. But I would argue the exact opposite. And prevention? I (and many researchers smarter than me) 100% believe many stillbirths are preventable. In the frenzy of new recommendations for inclined sleepers like the rock n play the CPSC put out this week I fear we're losing sight of the bigger picture. How about ten times the effort put into stillbirth research to save full term healthy babies like Abby from preventable, devastating losses?
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