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Home / What Causes a Baby to Die Before It Gets 3 Months Pregnancy

What Causes a Baby to Die Before It Gets 3 Months Pregnancy

KEY POINTS

  • Some pregnant people are more likely than others to have a stillbirth. Reducing some of the risk factors for stillbirth may help you have a healthy baby.

  • Nosotros don't know what causes all stillbirths. Common causes include infections, birth defects and pregnancy complications, similar preeclampsia.

  • You lot can have tests to try to observe out what caused your baby's decease and endeavor to forbid another stillbirth in your next pregnancy.

  • Well-nigh people who have a stillbirth and become significant over again take a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.

What is stillbirth?

Stillbirth is when a baby dies in the womb subsequently xx weeks of pregnancy. Most stillbirths happen before a pregnant person goes into labor, merely a modest number happen during labor and nativity. Stillbirth affects well-nigh 1 in 160 pregnancies each year in the United States.

Who is at risk for stillbirth?

Stillbirth tin can happen in whatever family unit. We don't always know why stillbirth affects certain families more than than others. Researchers are working to learn more about take a chance factors for stillbirth.

Risk factors are things that brand you lot at hazard for (more likely than others to have) a status. Having a chance gene for stillbirth doesn't mean for certain that yous will have a stillbirth. Just knowing about and reducing your gamble factors may aid forestall a stillbirth from happening to your baby. Some risk factors are things you can't change, such equally having a stillbirth in a previous pregnancy. Other gamble factors are things yous tin can do something virtually, like quitting smoking. Talk to your health care provider about what you tin can do to help reduce your risk factors for stillbirth.

According to the Centers for Affliction Control and Prevention (too chosen CDC) and other experts, hazard factors for stillbirth include:

Medical conditions

  • Being obese. If you're obese, y'all have an backlog corporeality of body fat and your body mass index (as well called BMI) is 30 or higher. BMI is a measure of body fat based on your acme and weight. To find out your BMI, become to www.cdc.gov/bmi.
  • Diabetes. Diabetes is a condition in which your torso has too much saccharide (called glucose) in the blood.
  • High blood pressure. Claret pressure is the forcefulness of blood that pushes confronting the walls of your arteries. Arteries are blood vessels that carry claret away from your heart to other parts of the body.
  • Substance abuse. Using certain harmful substances increase the take chances of having a stillbirth. For example, smoking, drinking booze or using street drugs or prescription painkillers, such as opioids.

Pregnancy conditions and pregnancy history

  • You're pregnant with multiples (twins, triplets or more).
  • You have intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (as well chosen ICP). This is the virtually common liver condition that happens during pregnancy.
  • You lot had complications in a previous pregnancy, like premature birth, preeclampsia or fetal growth restriction. Preterm nascency is a birth that happens also early on, before 37 weeks of pregnancy. Preeclampsia is a condition that tin happen after the 20th week of pregnancy or right after pregnancy. Information technology's when a pregnant person has high blood force per unit area and signs that some of her organs, like her kidneys and liver, may not be working properly. Fetal growth restriction is when a baby doesn't gain enough weight in the womb before nascence.
  • You've never given birth before.
  • Y'all had a miscarriage or stillbirth in a previous pregnancy. Miscarriage is when a baby dies in the womb earlier 20 weeks of pregnancy.
  • You're pregnant after the historic period of 35. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), studies show that a large number of stillbirths that happen among significant people 35 or older are related to built or chromosomal conditions.
  • You have little social support. Many single people have strong social networks of families and friends who assistance them. However, some studies accept reported a higher risk of stillbirth amidst unmarried people. Researchers think that this may be because they take less social support.

Health Disparities and Racism

We do not know exactly why, but stillbirth happens more than often in some groups compared with others. Nosotros call this a wellness disparity (difference). To sympathize why these groups are at a higher chance of having a stillbirth nosotros need to look at the social factors affecting them, this is what nosotros telephone call social determinants of health. These are the conditions in which yous are built-in, grow, work, alive and age. These conditions affect your health throughout your life. In many cases, social determinants of health and health disparities are related to racism.

Racism refers to the false belief that sure groups of people are born with qualities that make them better than other groups of people.

Racism isn't limited to personal attacks such as ethnic slurs, bullying, or physical assault. In a racist civilization, one group of people has more ability than other groups. People in the dominant racial or indigenous group make important decisions that affects everyone's lives. For example, they have a lot of command over the way that schools, wellness care, housing, laws and police enforcement work. This control means that people in the ascendant group are more probable to:

  • Accept improve education and job opportunities
  • Live in safer environmental atmospheric condition
  • Exist shown in a positive light by media, such every bit tv shows, movies, and news programs.
  • Exist treated with respect by law enforcement
  • Amend access to wellness intendance

In contrast, people from racial or indigenous minority groups who live in a racist order are more likely to:

  • Experience chronic stress
  • Live in an unsafe neighborhood
  • Live in areas that accept higher amounts of environmental toxins, such as air, water, and soil pollution
  • Get to a low-performing school
  • Accept express access to healthy foods
  • Have petty or no access to health insurance and quality medical care
  • Accept less admission to well-paying jobs

The Role of Chronic Stress

Studies take shown that the chronic stress acquired past living in a racist culture is a factor in many wellness conditions, including having a preterm or low-birthweight baby. While some studies and statistics mention race equally a risk factor for these conditions, we tin can't say that race itself the cause. More research is needed to sympathize the connections between racism, stress, and health problems.

Rates of Stillbirth

According to data from the CDC (2017), there are in that location are major differences in stillbirth rates amid different groups. For Black people, the stillbirth rate is more than double the rate than other groups, except when compared with American Indian/Alaskan Native people. These are rates per 1,000 live births and stillbirths. Encounter the data beneath:

  • Non-Hispanic Blackness, 10.32
  • American Indian/Alaska Native people, 7.22
  • Hispanic, 5.01
  • Non-Hispanic white, 4.89
  • Asian or Pacific Islander, 4.29

Being a person of color is not a cause for having a stillbirth. However, communities of colour are disproportionately afflicted by racism. Racism and diff living conditions bear upon their health and well-beingness and puts them at higher risk of pregnancy complications, such as stillbirth.

March of Dimes recognizes that racism and its furnishings are factors in the health disparities in pregnancy outcomes and babies' health. We must piece of work together to bring fair, just and full access to health care for all moms and babies.

How do you know if your baby is stillborn?

Signs of a condition are things someone else can see or know about you, similar you have a rash or you're coughing. Symptoms are things yous feel yourself that others tin can't come across, like having a sore throat or feeling dizzy.

The most common symptom of stillbirth is when you end feeling your baby moving and kicking. Others include cramps, pain or bleeding from the vagina. Call your wellness care provider correct away or get to the emergency room if you accept whatever of these conditions.

Your provider uses ultrasound to encounter if your baby's heart has stopped chirapsia. An ultrasound uses sound waves and a estimator screen to show a picture of your baby in the womb.

What are your options for giving birth if your babe is stillborn?

If your babe is stillborn, your provider talks with yous almost options for giving nascency. When and how you give birth depends on how far forth yous are in your pregnancy, your medical condition and what you recall is all-time for you lot and your family unit. Some women need to give nascency right away for medical reasons, but it's oftentimes safe to wait until you become into labor on your own. Labor normally starts within two weeks afterward a babe dies in the womb.

Your provider may recommend:

  • Dilation and evacuation (also called D&E). During this surgical process, your provider dilates (opens) the cervix to remove tissue from the lining of the uterus. The cervix is the opening to the uterus (womb) that sits at the top of the vagina. Having a D&E may limit the information your provider can go about your baby's condition. For case, if yous take a D&E, your baby's provider can't do an dissection on your baby.
  • Inducing labor. This is when your provider gives yous medicine or breaks your water (amniotic sac) to make your labor start. Most pregnant people with a stillbirth have their providers induce labor soon afterward they learn of their baby'due south death. If you decide to wait to get into labor on your own and it doesn't happen by 2 weeks afterwards your baby's decease, your provider may induce labor to help prevent unsafe claret clots from developing.
  • Cesarean birth (also called c-section). This is surgery in which your doctor makes a cutting in your belly and uterus to deliver your babe.

What tests do you get after a stillbirth?

Your provider checks your baby, the placenta and the umbilical cord to try to observe out why your baby died. The placenta grows in your uterus and supplies the baby with food and oxygen through the umbilical cord. Your provider may enquire to practice sure tests to try discover out what caused the stillbirth. Tests may include:

  • Amniocentesis (also called amnio). In this examination, your provider takes some amniotic fluid from around your baby in the uterus. If your provider thinks a genetic condition or an infection in your baby may have caused the stillbirth, she may recommend an amnio before yous give nativity. Genetic atmospheric condition are health weather that are passed from parents to children through genes.
  • Autopsy. This is a physical exam of your baby's body later on death. During an dissection, a provider checks your infant's organs for signs of birth defects or other weather. This may help your provider find out what caused your baby'due south death and if you may exist at adventure of having another stillbirth in the future. It's common for a provider not to find a cause for stillbirth. Birth defects are health atmospheric condition that are nowadays at birth. They alter the shape or function of 1 or more parts of the body. Nativity defects can cause problems in overall health, how the trunk develops or how the body works.
  • Genetic tests. Genetic tests to check for genetic weather in your infant
  • Tests for infections on your baby or on the placenta

In addition to checking your baby for medical and genetic conditions, your provider reviews your family health history and whatsoever problems or illnesses you had during pregnancy. Your family health history is a record of any health weather condition you, your partner and members of both your families have had. Your provider may want to test you for infections, genetic conditions and other medical conditions, like lupus or thyroid issues.

Information from tests on you and your infant may aid you if yous're thinking virtually getting pregnant once again. Test results may help your provider discover out if there'southward a chance that y'all could accept another stillbirth. Even if your provider doesn't find out what caused your stillbirth, having the tests may help you better sympathize and cope with your infant's decease. If yous accept questions virtually the tests, including their toll, talk to your health care provider.

If yous've had a stillbirth, tin you have a healthy infant in another pregnancy?

Aye. For most women, the chances of having another stillbirth are very low. Less than 1 in 100 women (less than 1 percent) who've had a stillbirth go on to have another stillbirth.

If you had a stillbirth and are thinking near having another baby, give yourself time to heal physically and emotionally. Your provider may recommend that you accept medical tests to try to find out more than about what caused your stillbirth. You may need to expect until after you've had these tests to attempt to get pregnant again.

If you had a stillbirth that was caused by a genetic condition, a genetic counselor tin can help you lot sympathize the status and the chances of you having some other stillbirth. A genetic advisor is a person who is trained to help you sympathize about how genes, birth defects and other medical weather run in families, and how they can affect your health and your baby's health. Your wellness care provider can help you find a genetic advisor.

Here's what y'all tin can exercise help to lower your chance of having a stillbirth in some other pregnancy:

  • Get a preconception checkup. This is a medical checkup y'all become before pregnancy. It helps make sure you're healthy when y'all get pregnant.
  • Get handling for any medical weather condition you lot have.
  • Get to a good for you weight before getting significant. Your provider can recommend means to get to a weight that's right for you.
  • Don't smoke, drinkable alcohol, apply marijuana or other drugs that tin be harmful to your pregnancy. Tell your provider if you lot need help to quit.
  • If you take any pain or bleeding from the vagina during pregnancy, call your provider right away.

If you get pregnant over again, your provider monitors yous and your baby closely. At around 32 weeks of pregnancy, she may ask yous to do kick counts to help yous continue track of how often your baby moves. Your provider also may do medical tests to cheque your baby'south heart rate and movements.

What causes stillbirth?

We don't know what causes many stillbirths, just common causes include:

Infections in the mother or baby. Some infections may not cause signs or symptoms and may not be diagnosed until they crusade serious complications, like premature birth or stillbirth. Infections that tin can cause stillbirth include:

  • Cytomegalovirus (also chosen CMV). This is a kind of canker virus that you can go by coming in contact with trunk fluid (similar saliva, semen, mucus, urine or blood) from a person who carries the virus. Information technology's a common infection in immature children, only if y'all get it during pregnancy, it can cause serious problems, like stillbirth.
  • Fifth disease. This is a common babyhood affliction that's caused past a virus called parvovirus B19. It usually spreads through the air from an infected person'south cough or sneeze.
  • Genital and urinary tract infections. These infections affect the urinary tract and genitals (as well called sex organs), like the vagina or ovaries. The urinary tract is the system of organs (like the kidneys and float) that helps your body get rid of waste and extra fluids. Getting infected with genital herpes for the first time during pregnancy tin can pb to stillbirth. Genital herpes is a sexually transmitted infection (also called STI) y'all tin get from having sexual practice with someone who's infected.
  • Listeriosis. This is a blazon of food poisoning.
  • Syphilis. This is an STI.
  • Toxoplasmosis. This is an infection you tin get from eating undercooked meat or touching cat poop.

Problems with the placenta or umbilical string. Placental issues include infections, blood clots, inflammation (redness, hurting and swelling), problems with claret vessels and other conditions, like placental abruption. Placental abruption is a serious status in which the placenta separates from the wall of the uterus earlier nascence. Placental problems cause nigh 24 in 100 stillbirths (24 pct). Problems with the umbilical cord include having a knot in the cord or the cord being pinched and then that your babe doesn't become enough oxygen. Issues with the umbilical cord may lead to near 10 in 100 stillbirths (10 percent).

Complications during pregnancy, including:

  • Beingness significant longer than 42 weeks
  • Diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and preeclampsia
  • Health conditions like lupus, thrombophilias and thyroid disorders. Lupus is an autoimmune disorder. Autoimmune disorders are health conditions that happen when antibodies (cells in the body that fight off infections) attack good for you tissue just about anywhere in the body by mistake. Thyroid disorders touch on your thyroid, a gland in your neck that makes hormones that help your body store and apply energy from food. Thrombophilias increase your chances of making abnormal claret clots.
  • Preterm labor and preterm premature rupture of the membranes (also chosen PPROM). Preterm labor is labor that begins early, before 37 weeks of pregnancy. PPROM is when the sac around the babe breaks early, causing labor to start.
  • Fetomaternal hemorrhage. This is when your baby's blood mixes with your blood during pregnancy or birth.
  • Trauma or injuries (like from a motorcar accident)

Atmospheric condition in the baby, including:

  • Birth defects and genetic atmospheric condition. Nearly fourteen in 100 stillborn babies (14 percent) have ane or more birth defects, including genetic weather condition like Down syndrome.
  • Fetal growth restriction
  • Non getting plenty oxygen during labor and birth
  • Rh disease. Rh factor is a protein on the surface of ruby-red blood cells. Rh disease happens when a adult female who doesn't have the protein (called Rh-negative) is pregnant with a babe who does accept the protein (chosen Rh-positive). Rh disease can exist prevented.

How tin can y'all deal with feelings of grief after a stillbirth?

Grief is all the feelings y'all have when someone close to you dies. Having a stillborn infant is a painful loss for a family. Simply there are things you can practise to assistance you lot grieve, heal and remember your baby.

After birth, do what feels right for you and your family unit. You may want to spend fourth dimension alone with your baby and other family members. Yous can proper noun your baby, concord your baby, bathe and clothe her and take part in cultural or religious traditions, like baptism. Some families take pictures of their babe, make footprints or salvage locks of hair. You may be able to go along things from the hospital, like blankets, that were used with your babe. Keepsakes similar these tin can help yous and your family unit remember your baby.

Parents who have a stillbirth need time to grieve. You and your partner may cope with grief in unlike ways, and you may need help dealing with others equally y'all grieve.

After you get out the hospital, certain things, like hearing names you were thinking of for your baby, seeing the baby'due south nursery at home or having your chest milk come in can be painful reminders of your loss. You may need help learning how to deal with these situations and the feelings they create. Ask your health care provider to aid yous detect a grief counselor to assistance you cope with your baby's death. Or your hospital may have a loss and grief program for families. Getting counseling tin be actually helpful to you and your family.

Talking about your feelings with other parents who have had a stillbirth may assist you bargain with your grief. Visit shareyourstory.org, the March of Dimes online customs where families who accept lost a babe can talk to and support each other. Sharing your story may ease your pain and aid you heal.

Having a stillbirth may brand you at take chances for postpartum depression (likewise called PPD). PPD is a kind of depression that some women get after having a babe. Tell your provider if y'all take signs or symptoms of PPD, similar feeling depressed most of the day every twenty-four hours, having lilliputian interest in things yous normally like to practice, or having problem eating or sleeping.

More data

  • From hurt to healing  (free booklet from the March of Dimes for grieving parents)
  • Share Your Story (March of Dimes online community for families to share experiences with prematurity, birth defects or loss)
  • Centering Corporation (grief data and resources)
  • Compassionate Friends (support for families after the decease of a child)
  • Offset Candle (support for families with children who died of SIDS or preventable stillbirth)
  • International Stillbirth Alliance
  • Journeying Program of Seattle Children's Hospital (support for families after the expiry of a child)
  • Now I Lay Me Down to Slumber (remembrance photography)
  • Perinatal Hospice & Palliative Intendance (resources for parents who find out during pregnancy that their baby has a life-limiting condition
  • Share Pregnancy & Babe Loss Back up (resources for families with pregnancy or babe loss)
  • Star Legacy Foundation (support for families who have had a stillbirth)

Final reviewed: October, 2020

What Causes a Baby to Die Before It Gets 3 Months Pregnancy

Source: https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/stillbirth.aspx