Two women I greatly admire, Marny Smith who I work alongside with in PUSH Pregnancy, and Debbie Vijayvergiya, who I have had the pleasure of working with in amplifying the SHINE for Autumn Act, collaborated on this kick-ass op-ed piece for USA Today which sheds light on the number of stillbirths happening yearly and what the SHINE for Autumn Act will do to lower those numbers.
You can read the whole article here, below are some key pieces I'd like to highlight.
"The poor data, lack of awareness and insufficient prevention strategies in this country make something very clear to bereaved parents: Your baby’s death doesn’t matter." - Debbie
"Though stillbirth is often written off as a freak accident, it is far from rare. The sad truth is that stillbirth claims 10 times the number of babies as SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), which the public is far more educated about." - Marny
"Unlike other countries, we don't have a national system to report and investigate stillbirths." - Debbie & Marny
"If we are not accurately capturing information about the stillbirths that occur, we cannot determine why they are happening, making prevention virtually impossible." - Debbie & Marny