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Federal Legislation Proposed
Stillbirth and SUID Prevention, Education and Awareness Act
In July 2009 the Stillbirth and SUID Prevention, Education and Awareness Act was filed in the Senate by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and in the House by Representative Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ. This Act would improve the collection of critical data to determine the cause of stillbirth and sudden, unexpected infant death (SUID), increase education and awareness about how to prevent tragedies in the future and expand support services for families.
Every year there are more than 25,000 stillbirths in the United States. Many of these deaths are the result of birth defects, infections, umbilical cord problems and chronic conditions of the mother. However there is no own cause for many as half of all stillbirths, leaving many parents without answers to the reasons for these deaths. This bill would expand current activities related to stillbirth and increase education and awareness among health care providers and families.
Specifically it would:
- Expand current data collection activities to additional states to identify the causes of stillbirth and ways to prevent it in the future.
- Create public awareness and education campaign to educate women about the risk factors for stillbirth and the importance of prenatal care
- Expand support services, such as grief counseling, for families who have experienced a stillbirth.
In addition there are more than 4,600 sudden, unexpected infant deaths each year and another 200 children between the ages of 1 and 4 without any obvious cause for their deaths. Many such tragedies could be prevented if there were better understanding of the reasons why these children died. The Act encourages states to complete scene investigations to better understand why these children died and establishes a national database to track these deaths and identify risk factors to prevent them in the future.
Specifically it would:
- Encourage states to complete scene investigations and autopsies to help determine causes of death and collect uniform data.
- Provide funding to train state and local personnel on completing scene investigations.
- Expand successful child death review programs to review circumstances surrounding children’s deaths n their communities.
- Establish a national database to track these deaths and identify risk factors to prevent them in the future.
- Create national public awareness and education campaign to educate parents and caregivers about known risk factors.
- Expand support services, such as grief counseling, for families who have experienced the death of a child.
Track the status of the bill at the Library of Congress’s Thomas at thomas.loc.gov by searching for the bill by name or by number (S1145 or HR 3212).
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