U.S. Stillbirth Rates Higher Than Previously Reported by CDC

THURSDAY, Oct. 30, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The stillbirth rate in the United States from 2016 through 2022 appears to be higher than the rate reported in 2021 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a research letter published online Oct. 27 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Haley K. Sullivan, from Harvard Interfaculty Initiative in Health Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and colleagues conducted a cohort study of singleton births between Jan. 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2022, to characterize stillbirth rates. Unadjusted stillbirth rates were reported per 1,000 births, overall, and in specific subgroups.

The researchers identified 18,893 stillbirths among 2,792,669 live births (6.8 per 1,000 births). Prospective fetal mortality was lowest and highest at 29 weeks of gestation and 41 or more weeks of gestation (0.13 and 2.29 per 1,000 ongoing pregnancies, respectively), and increased almost twofold between 38 and 39 weeks of gestation (0.66 to 1.30 per 1,000 ongoing pregnancies). Of the stillbirths, 72.3 percent had at least one clinical risk factor, varying from 59.3 to 83.0 percent of stillbirths across gestational weeks. Among pregnancies with versus without clinical risk factors, stillbirth rates were higher (7.94 versus 4.88 per 1,000 births); rates were highest among pregnancies with oligohydramnios, fetal anomalies, or chronic hypertension and were lower in the subsample of third-trimester births. There was significant variation in stillbirth rates with the proportion of low-income households and the proportion of Black versus White residents in a ZIP code.

“These findings provide contemporary insights into clinical and structural factors influencing stillbirth risk, informing the design of future efforts to reduce stillbirth rates in the United States,” the authors write.

Two authors disclosed ties to industry.

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