06/09/2026
This is a post from Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, copied from LinkedIn
Between 2018 and 2022, the number of countries with a national plan to prevent the death of a baby at or before birth rose from 59% to 87%. Yet, the rates of death barely changed. Seven of the twenty measures researchers hoped to track had no data at all.
This tells us something important: A plan on paper isn't the same as care in the real world.
Families don't experience a national strategy. They experience what happens during and after their baby's death. They experience whether someone speaks plainly and tenderly, whether they are given time, whether they are offered choices, whether anyone recognizes that this baby is a beloved child who died, not a lost pregnancy. They are a family forever changed.
The scorecard found the most progress where commitments could be written down. And, in the domains that matter most to bereaved families, respectful care, stigma, equity, and the quality of care, the global record is not merely poor. The data seem to be largely absent.
The distance between policy and presence is not merely an administrative failure. It is an ethical one. And it's a gap bereaved families have been carrying for far too long.
Thank you ISA–SAWG for your very important work. I'm hopeful for and with you and future families who will know this tragic loss.
Background The Lancet Ending Preventable Stillbirths series issued a global Call to Action to reduce stillbirths and improve bereavement care. To monitor progress, we developed a global scorecard to...
