The grief of a stillbirth is unlike any other form of grief: the months of excitement and expectation, planning, eagerquestions, and the drama of labour-all magnifying the devastating incomprehension of giving birth to a baby bearing no signs of life. Thankfully such events are rare. Or are they? As the Series we launch today shows, almost 3 million stillbirths happen worldwide every year, which, even for a country with a developed health system such as the UK, means that 17 sets of parents every day will take home their newborn baby in a coffin. 98% of stillbirths, however, occur in low-income and middle-income countries, and in places such as south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, at least half of them take place during labour or birth. These are the areas of the world where, if the median proportion of births attended by a skilled delivery assistant were 100% rather than 49%, or if the median caesarean section rate was 24% instead of 3%, most of these tragedies would not have happened.
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