Raising My Voice for My Baby and Yours
By Debbie Haine Vijayvergiya
Before my daughter Autumn died in 2011, I lived 34 years of ignorant bliss, never knowing what a stillbirth was or that I was at risk. I struggled to comprehend how my healthy pregnancy had ended in this way. I was appalled to learn how frequently stillbirths were occurring and how little health-care providers knew about why they were happening. Since then, I have been working tirelessly to put stillbirth on the map in this country, with the hope that other families will never have to experience the devastation and lifelong grief of losing a baby like we did. Will you join me?
Stillbirth is a tragically neglected public health crisis in the United States. Many people do not realize that stillbirths still occur in the twenty-first century, yet every year approximately 21,000 babies are born still in our country. Nationwide, stillbirth is 17 times more common than SIDS. Safe sleep campaigns have been very successful at preventing SIDS; unfortunately, similar efforts have not been directed towards stillbirth. Incomplete and inaccurate data about stillbirths, the stigma around discussing this terrifying and agonizing loss, and the lack of experts who can accurately determine the cause of our babies’ deaths all pose major challenges to reducing stillbirths.
But all hope is not lost; we can do something about stillbirth. The bipartisan Stillbirth Health Improvement and Education (SHINE) for Autumn Act is the beginning of a longer-term solution towards preventing U.S. stillbirths. The bill would authorize funding for improved research, data collection, education, and training to reduce the overall incidence of stillbirths. In 2021, SHINE passed the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan support (408/18), and we are currently working to ensure that the bill gets passed and signed into law this year.
How do we make sure that Congress listens and acts to prevent stillbirths? It’s as simple as this —
* If you want your legislators to vote in support of the SHINE for Autumn Act, they need to hear from you directly. Staff in each Congressional office log every call and message they receive. The more often an office hears from constituents about an issue, the more likely it will be brought to the legislator’s attention. Members of Congress vote for laws that their constituents support and issues that concern them.
We are building a nationwide coalition of people and organizations who will voice their support for the SHINE for Autumn Act to their elected officials. If you want to go a step further, we are also looking for volunteers to organize other residents in their home states to advocate for the SHINE for Autumn Act. Please visit our website and email me if you are interested. We need support in every state!
I hope that you will honor my baby, your baby, and all other babies gone too soon by joining me to make stillbirth prevention a priority in the United States.
