  a stillbirth occurs when a fetus dies in the uterus. a wide variety of definitions exist. once the fetus has died, the mother may or may not have contractions and undergo childbirth. the term is often used in distinction to live birth or miscarriage and the word miscarriage is often used incorrectly to describe stillbirths. most stillbirths occur in full-term pregnancies. ==human stillbirth== ===causes=== the causes of a large percentage of human stillbirths remain unknown, even in cases where extensive testing and autopsy have been performed. a rarely used term to describe these is "sudden antenatal death syndrome" or sads, a phrase coined by cacciatore & collins in 2000. many stillbirths occur at fullterm to apparently healthy mothers, and a postmortem evaluation reveals a cause of death in only about 40% of autopsied cases.cacciatore, j. (2007). a phenomenological exploration of stillbirth and the effects of ritualization on maternal anxiety and depression, university of nebraska-lincoln press, digital commons ; froen, j.f. (2005). in cases where the cause is known, some possibilities of the cause of death are: *bacterial infection *birth defects, especially pulmonary hypoplasia *chromosomal aberrations *growth retardation *intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy *maternal diabetes *high blood pressure, including preeclampsia *maternal consumption of recreational drugs (such as alcohol, [[nicotin
Death Demography Fertility Pathology_of_pregnancy,_childbirth_and_the_puerperium