Every stillbirth is a tragedy. But with your help, we can send more babies home, where they should be.

In Australia 6 babies are stillborn every day. In India there are more than 900 stillborn babies every single day.

The difference is shocking, but Associate Professor Josh Vogel, here at Burnet Institute, wants to take action to bring that number down.

It was Josh that came across innovative research conducted in Australia and New Zealand which found that by altering maternal sleep behaviour in late pregnancy, nearly 6% of stillbirths could be avoided.

The question he asked himself was: could safe sleeping advice be a new approach to reducing the horrific rates of stillbirths in low- and middle-income countries?

“There’s a lot we don’t yet know about how pregnancy sleeping advice might translate into other countries. For a start we need to understand precisely what constitutes normal sleep behaviour for pregnant women in India and Bangladesh.

“We also need to understand the perspectives of doctors, midwives and nurses who care for these women. What do they know about safe sleeping in pregnancy? What advice do they give to expecting mums?

“It’s a great big unknown that we can help solve.”

We aim to raise $80,000 by the end of this year. This money will go directly and in its entirety to Josh and his team, so they can start their project to test sleep position advice for pregnant woman in India and in Bangladesh in early-2023.

If we raise more, it would mean Josh could do the study in more countries. The more countries we do the study in, the more compelling the evidence to the World Health Organization (WHO) to adopt sleep position for prevention of stillbirth advice across the globe. The more babies go home with their parents.

Please donate today.

Together we can send more babies home with their parents – where they should be.