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S. 2858: Stillbirth Health Improvement and Education for Autumn Act of 2025

This bill, known as the Stillbirth Health Improvement and Education for Autumn Act of 2025 (SHINE for Autumn Act of 2025), aims to enhance research and data collection on stillbirths. The key provisions of the bill include the following:

Funding for Research and Data Collection

The bill allows for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to grant funds to states for multiple purposes related to stillbirths, including:

Conducting Surveillance: States can collect and analyze data on stillbirths using existing datasets to understand the scope and causes of this issue.
Building Public Health Capacity: The grants will support the enhancement of state and local public health resources for better assessment of stillbirth data.
Identifying Risk Factors: States will collect and report information on risks associated with stillbirths and track relevant health outcomes connected to these risks.

To ensure patient confidentiality, any collected data must be de-identified, meaning it cannot reveal individual patient identities or health providers. The bill allocates $5 million annually for this initiative from fiscal years 2026 to 2030.

Guidelines and Educational Materials

The bill requires the Secretary to:

Issue Guidelines: Provide instructions to state health departments on how to collect stillbirth data from healthcare providers, ensuring standardization and completeness of the collected information.
Develop Awareness Materials: Create and make publicly available educational resources regarding stillbirth to raise awareness among health professionals and the general public.

Additionally, the Secretary may consult with various stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, advocacy organizations, and families impacted by stillbirth during the development of these guidelines and materials. For this purpose, $1 million annually is authorized for the same fiscal years (2026-2030).

Long-Term Reporting

Within five years of the bill's enactment, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is mandated to publish a report on educational guidelines regarding stillbirth and its risk factors. This report will be available on the Department of Health and Human Services' public website and will include information based on the guidelines and materials developed under this act.

Definitions

The bill defines a "vital statistics unit" as the entity responsible for maintaining official records for the state, which includes records of live births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages, divorces, and related events.