Stillbirth is the loss of a baby at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later. In the United States it affects roughly 1 in 175 births, and CDC data show that in 2024, there were about 5.4 stillbirths per 1,000 babies born. This is the lowest rate of stillbirths in decades but is still close to 20,000 losses in a single year. Roughly 40% of stillbirths are believed to be potentially preventable, and many others remain unexplained even after full evaluation.
Those two facts sit uncomfortably together, which is why this topic is worth understanding rather than avoiding. Knowing where your risk actually sits is usually less frightening than not knowing.
What Raises Risk, and What You Can Change
Some risk factors are fixed. A prior stillbirth is the strongest predictor. Others include multiples, pregnancy conceived through IVF, fetal growth restriction, certain fetal anomalies, and maternal age, particularly at 40 and older.
Others respond to management, which is where most of the opportunity lies:
- Chronic hypertension, pregestational diabetes, thyroid disease, and autoimmune conditions all raise risk, and controlling them well before and during pregnancy lowers it
- Smoking increases risk in a dose-dependent way, and quitting between or during pregnancies is protective
- Obesity is a consistent risk factor, though the leverage point is preconception rather than weight loss during pregnancy
- Placental problems, which underlie a large share of unexplained losses, often announce themselves through poor fetal growth
There is also a disparity that no individual choice explains. CDC data show stillbirth rates near 10 per 1,000 among Black and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander mothers, roughly double the rate for White, Hispanic, and Asian mothers. Researchers attribute this to differences in access and quality of care, not to anything patients are doing wrong.
What a Risk Calculator Can and Cannot Tell You
Risk assessment tools, including the one on the High Risk Pregnancy Center website, do one specific job well: sorting who needs a closer look. They combine known factors so care can be matched to actual risk.
What they cannot do is predict an individual outcome. Being flagged as higher risk is not a forecast. It is a prompt to have a real conversation about monitoring, and most people flagged this way deliver healthy babies.
