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The Conversation
Jill Lens, Professor of Law, University of Iowa

Fetal autopsies could help prevent stillbirths, but too often they are used to blame mothers for pregnancy loss

At least 1 in 4 stillbirths in the U.S. are preventable, research shows. O2O Creative/iStock via Getty Images Plus

About 60 pregnancies per day in the U.S. end in stillbirth.

The best way to find out why a stillbirth occurred is a fetal autopsy – yet these procedures are performed in only 1 in 5 of the over 20,000 stillbirths that occur each year. As I explain in my recent book, “Stillbirth and the Law,” the fact that so few fetal autopsies are performed after stillbirths is actually a driver of the disproprotionately high number of stillbirths in the U.S.

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