It is often difficult to explain why babies die before they are born. Statistics could provide clues. The reasons for the increased number of stillbirths in Germany seem to be manifold.
About every 230th child in Germany is stillborn. After a low in 2007 with 3.5 stillbirths per 1000 births, the rate is tending to rise again, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden. In 2021, 3,420 children were stillborn in Germany, which corresponds to around 4.3 stillbirths per 1,000 births. In 2020 and 2019 there were 4.1 stillbirths per 1000 births.
How often children are stillborn depends, among other things, on the age of the woman. For 25 to 36 year olds, the 2021 rate was around the average of 4.3. For younger women under the age of 21 and for women aged 37 and over, it was significantly higher, at more than 5 stillbirths per 1000 births. At the same time, the proportion of stillbirths born to women over the age of 36 rose from 16 percent in 2007 to 20 percent in 2021. The proportion of younger women, on the other hand, fell from 7 to 3 percent.
On average, women were 32.2 years old when they gave birth. Her age was therefore almost five months higher than the average age for a live birth. “However, the increasing age of women at birth cannot be the cause of the increase in stillbirths, since the stillbirth rate has tended to increase in all age groups in the past ten years,” write the statisticians.
The stillbirth rate in East Germany, including Berlin, has almost consistently been higher than in West Germany since 1990, although the age of women at the time of stillbirth was lower in East Germany than in the West. In 2021, the stillbirth rate was 4.7 in eastern Germany and 4.2 in western Germany per 1000 births.
