Ireland’s stillbirth rates rank ahead of Britain’s

Ireland emerges reasonably well from an international comparison of stillbirth rates across 49 high income countries, ranking 17th, seven places ahead of the UK.

At 2.7 per 1,000 births, our stillbirth rate in 2015 was below the estimated average of 3.5 per 1,000 across the 49 countries, and well below the Ukraine, which recorded the highest stillbirth rate of 8.8 per 1,000 births. In the UK, the rate was 2.9 stillbirths per 1,000, while in France the rate was 4.7 per 1,000, with stillbirth measured at 28 weeks gestation or greater for the purpose of this study.

Iceland performed best, with a rate of just 1.3 stillbirths per 1,000.