SCIENCE FILE / An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment : Better Medical Care Reduces Stillborn Rate in Older Women

Better medical care has reduced the likelihood of complications in childbirth for older women, but pregnant women over 35 are still more likely to have a stillborn child than younger women, according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine. A research team led by Dr. Ruth Fretts of Harvard Medical School found the stillborn rate was twice as high among women over 40 as among women under 30.

But the overall likelihood that the fetus will die has declined by 70% since the 1960s. The results show that the fetal death rate from 1978 to 1993 for women over 40 is roughly the same as that for women under 30 between 1961 and 1974. Pregnant women over the age of 35 who have undergone early screening for fetal anomalies have a live-birth rate of 994 per 1,000. Each year, about 92,000 American women older than 39 give birth.