Sponsors (42)
Creates an HHS stillbirth research and data collection program, funds state surveillance grants and federal guidance, and requires educational materials and a public report.
Official title: Improve research and data collection on stillbirths, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 18, 2025 by Cory Anthony Booker · Last progress September 18, 2025
The bill improves understanding, prevention, and awareness of stillbirths through funded surveillance and standardized guidance—likely improving maternal and infant health—while imposing modest federal and state administrative costs and raising privacy/participation risks.
Pregnant people and families will benefit from improved federal surveillance and analysis of stillbirth causes, enabling better-targeted prevention strategies and public-health interventions.
Pregnant people, families, and clinicians will have access to official, standardized educational guidelines and materials on stillbirth risk factors that can be posted on HHS's website and used by hospitals for consistent patient counseling and training.
State and local health departments will receive grant funding and supported capacity to conduct surveillance and analyze stillbirth trends, strengthening local public-health response and data infrastructure.
Use of existing fetal and infant mortality review datasets, even if deidentified, could raise privacy and data-use concerns among patients and providers, reducing participation or consent and undermining data completeness.
The program and reporting duties create modest new federal costs (Section 2 estimates about $6M/year FY2026–2030) plus administrative costs for HHS to publish and maintain guidance—costs ultimately borne by taxpayers.
State and local agencies receiving grants must implement new data collection, privacy protocols, and IT processes, imposing administrative and technical burdens on health departments.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal stillbirth research, surveillance, and education program at HHS and authorizes funding to support state-level data collection, training, and public outreach. It requires HHS to issue guidelines for standardized stillbirth data collection (including deidentified clinical and pathology information where consented), to award grants to states to build capacity and surveillance systems, and to publish an educational report within five years containing the program’s guidelines and awareness materials. The bill authorizes $5 million per year for FY2026–2030 for state surveillance grants and $1 million per year for FY2026–2030 for HHS guidance and education activities; collected data must be deidentified and compliant with privacy laws.