Study: 2 million babies stillborn every year

By Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

About half of the 2 million babies born stillborn every year could be saved if their mothers had better medical care.

EnlargeCloseBy Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

About half of the 2 million babies born stillborn every year could be saved if their mothers had better medical care.

While the vast majority of stillbirths happen in the developing world, the rates in countries including Britain, France and the U.S. have not dropped to the degree many experts had expected, as rising obesity levels among pregnant women increase the risk.

Experts say providing better obstetric care, treating conditions like syphilis, high blood pressure and diabetes in mothers, among other strategies, could save more than 1 million infants every year. The research was paid for by organizations including Save the Children, the World Health Organization and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It was published online Thursday in the journal, Lancet.

"It's a scandal there are so many stillbirths that can be prevented," said Joy Lawn, director of global evidence and policy at Save the Children in South Africa, who led the Lancet series. She said the politics of public health has meant the stillbirths problem has been sidelined by maternal and child health programs, even though there are more stillbirths than children killed by AIDS and malaria combined.

In developing countries, most stillbirths are caused by delivery complications, maternal infections in pregnancy, fetal growth problems and congenital abnormalities. In developed countries, the reasons are often unclear why stillbirths occur, and surveillance and autopsy data are patchy.

But the researchers' estimates have a wide margin of error: the numbers range between 2.1 million to 3.8 million stillbirths a year. Those figures are based on reported statistics from 33 countries, largely in the West. For the other 160 countries, where the most stillbirths occur, scientists relied on modeled estimates.

William Easterly, an aid development expert at New York University, said the numbers were based on too little information to be reliable. He was not connected to the research.

"It's basically made-up data," he said.

Easterly said he was glad to see stillbirths on the global agenda, but warned the estimates could distort public health policy.

Finland and Singapore had the lowest stillbirth rates worldwide

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