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Stillbirths

Map No. 259

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Stillborn means dead at birth. In 2000 there were 3.3 million stillbirths worldwide, more than a third of these occurred in Southern Asia.

The number of stillbirths for every 1000 births varies between regions; where parents live greatly affects the chance of a stillbirth. In Central Africa, there are 42 stillbirths for every 1000 births; the Western European rate is a tenth of this. Mauritania has the highest rate of stillbirths at 6.3%. Generally, the richer the territory, the fewer stillbirths occur there.

"He was beautiful; perfect in every way, except he never took his first breath, and we never heard him cry." Sands Bereaved Parent, undated

Territory size shows the proportion of all stillbirths over 28 weeks of gestation worldwide that occurred there in 2000.

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• Data files: Excel (large with map), Excel (small no map), Opendoc format (see notes)
• Technical notes for this data.
• High Resolution image (see copyright conditions)
• All of the data we use is estimated; see data page