In the United States and Canada, Stillbirth Remembrance Day is a day set aside each year to honor and remember babies that have been stillborn. In many cases, this definition is expanded to include babies lost to miscarriage, SIDS, and complications of pregnancy, including ectopic pregnancies, among others. In light of this latter definition, Stillbirth Remembrance Day is sometimes known as Stillbirth and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, or something similar.
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In recent years, there has been a lobby by parents who have lost babies to stillbirth in particular, for governors of U.S. states and premiers of Canadian provinces to issue official proclamations for a particular day to be Stillbirth Remembrance Day in their state or province. This is in line with similar lobbies for the so-called "MISSing Angels"[1] bills promoted by the MISS Foundation[2] beginning in 1998 that would mandate the issuance upon a parent's request and payment of a Certificate of Birth resulting in Stillbirth certificates recognizing a stillborn baby's name and vital statistics, lending official recognition to the stillborn baby's albeit brief existence and hence ensuring that a stillborn baby is seen in the same light as her living siblings. As of September 2005, the legislatures of 28 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces had passed or were considering laws mandating such certificates, which are interestingly already available in the United Kingdom and other European countries. A baby who died in 1994 during birth at fullterm named Cheyenne Cacciatore was the first stillborn baby in the United States to receive a Certificate of Birth resulting in Stillbirth. Her mother, Dr. Joanne Cacciatore[3], started the movement several years after her baby's death. In addition, a few more U.S. states have legislated a day of remembrance of the stillborn.
The idea of an annual day to remember stillborns followed perhaps the most notable stillbirth in recent years, that of Breanna Lynn Bartlett-Stewart in September 2000. In Breanna Lynn's home state of Arkansas, widespread media coverage following her stillbirth sparked an unprecedented public awareness of the seemingly random and largely unknown killer of more than 26,000 babies each year in the United States alone. In response to public lobbying, the state legislature of Arkansas passed a law proclaiming Breanna Lynn's birthday, September 6, to be Arkansas Stillbirth Remembrance Day; the day was first observed on what would have been Breanna Lynn's first birthday, September 6, 2001. This proclamation was warmly welcomed by most Arkansans, even if they had no personal connection to a stillborn baby. On this day, the noon news in Little Rock showed motorists on Interstate 30 traveling with their lights on in memory of the stillborn.
Following Arkansas' example, several other Southeastern U.S. states passed laws enacting September 6 to be Stillbirth Remembrance Day in time for Breanna Lynn's second birthday in 2002. With each passing year, more U. S. states issued similar proclamations; on September 6, 2005, Breanna Lynn Bartlett-Stewart's fifth birthday, 39 U.S. states officially paused to remember babies lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death. The eleven other U.S. states that had not yet proclaimed September 6 as Stillbirth Remembrance Day were
Significant lobbies exist in each of these remaining states to proclaim an official day of stillbirth remembrance.
October 15 has been proclaimed by the United States Congress as National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in the United States. Many U. S. state governors have made similar proclamations in the last two years, effectively creating two annual days for the remembrance of infant loss. In general, October 15 is set aside by many states as a day to honor babies who were miscarried, lost as the result of pregnancy complications, or lost as the result of SIDS. In this way, the special case of a stillbirth, the cause of which is quite often unknown, is differentiated from infant losses that have more specifically understood causes.
A similar national day of remembrance for pregnancy loss and infant death has also been proclaimed in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Nova Scotia Canada. Other Canadian provinces, however, have yet to make such a declaration.
The Canadian foundation for October 15 Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day is leading the Campaign to proclaim October 15 as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day across Canada.