Written by Jane Warland for Stellar Research

I joined the army against stillbirth. Why?…because I want change!…

I silently stood with a few other militia 🙂 outside the Minister of Health’s office in Adelaide holding a placard which said:

Why was this an important placard for me to hold? Because my baby Emma was stillborn 24 years ago and frankly I am APPALLED that we were losing 6 Australian babies a day to stillbirth then and we are STILL losing that same number to stillbirth today.

What is the army all about? 
StillAware have produced a document calling for “change to stop preventable stillbirth” which was recently sent to each health Minister. We are going to meet in a silent rally on the 6th of each month until the 3 actions we are calling for have been addressed. The three actions are:
1. Mandated policy
2. Coronial Jurisdiction
3. Access to information for all…

• The mandated policy requested is that maternity health care providers are required to undertake mandated professional development in ways to prevent stillbirth and that they be required to have discussions throughout pregnancy to inform pregnant women in their care about how to reduce their risk.
• We are asking for coronial jurisdiction to be extended to include stillbirth so that maternity care-providers are held accountable and the public can be assured that when a preventable stillbirth occurs that it has been properly investigated and recommendations made to prevent such deaths from occurring in the future.
• Finally we are asking for funds to raise public awareness. Currently there is silence and taboo around the word stillbirth (the reason why we stood silently today) But we need to break that silence and really the only way to do that is to make the public aware that 6 babies die each and every day and that that is simply NOT OK.

So wherever you are in Australia I invite you to join the army when it next is due to ‘fight’…the 6th of October. Whoever you are and whatever your connection to stillbirth is (parent, grandparent, or extended family member of victim) friend, near miss parent, health care provider or just a concerned person. Because as this placard so beautifully says:

Read the Still Aware blog here