When a health insurer refuses to pay for your treatment, you may have the right to have the denial reviewed — and potentially overturned — by an independent provider. Here are six steps experts suggest to help you through the external appeal process.
Clinical teams across the country are forming a five-year, $37 million consortium to research stillbirth, a long-neglected public health concern. “There’s no question that the ProPublica reporting was intimately tied to this,” one expert said.
While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak, experts warn that whooping cough and other preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and Trump’s slashing of public health infrastructure.
Public health teams are being gutted, imperiling efforts to safeguard organ donation and prevent maternal and infant death. Many workers expressed fear at what would happen to the work they left behind.
“Before a Breath” gives voice to parents who have lost children to stillbirth. Screenings for the film will roll out across the country in early 2025. Here’s how you can get involved to help spread the word.
The bill expands the use of existing federal money to be used to fight stillbirths. Lawmakers cited ProPublica’s reporting on the issue as key to adding urgency and building support for the measure.
Australia has emerged as a global leader in the effort to lower the number of babies that die before taking their first breaths. It’s an approach that could benefit America, which lags behind other wealthy nations in reducing stillbirths.
Responding to a ProPublica investigation into the “lung float test,” which some have likened to a witch trial, lawyers and medical professionals will work to determine whether the test should be used in court.
Following ProPublica’s reporting on the nation’s stillbirth crisis, a bipartisan group of senators reintroduced a bill to fund prevention. After the Senate passed the legislation unanimously in September, the House is expected to take it up next.
The “lung float” test claims to help determine if a baby was born alive or dead, but many medical examiners say it’s too unreliable. Yet the test is still being used to bring murder charges — and get convictions.
The legislation seeks to improve data and research, as well as develop stillbirth awareness materials. Many women interviewed by ProPublica said they didn’t know they were at risk until they delivered their stillborn baby.
After legislation fell short of passage last year, a bipartisan group of lawmakers hope to advance a new bill to fund stillbirth prevention, and they credit ProPublica for its reporting.
We spoke to dozens of parents and medical experts about what causes stillbirths, whether there are warning signs to look for during pregnancy, and what your options are if you experience a stillbirth.
A National Institutes of Health report decried stillbirths as a “major public health concern” and said the nation needed to do more to address the problem through research and prevention.
A ProPublica investigation found the U.S. lagging other developed nations in reducing the number of stillbirths. Lawmakers say increased funding will be key to any improvement.
Black women in America are more than twice as likely as white women to have a stillbirth. Getting physicians to take their concerns seriously is one reason for this disparity, they say: “If you’re a Black woman, you get dismissed.”
One in three stillbirths goes unexplained, leaving parents desperate for information. Many doctors don’t perform autopsies or tests that could offer insight, while some patients decide against them without fully understanding the potential benefits.
Every year more than 20,000 pregnancies in the U.S. result in a stillbirth, but not all of these tragedies were inevitable. As many as one in four stillbirths are potentially preventable.
A lack of testing data and government guidance led many to avoid the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy, unwittingly increasing their chances of a stillbirth.