Stillbirth Certificate

knirish1 · February 2013

I spent nearly an hour today calling 311 and various departments of the hospital where I delivered trying to get a Stillbirth Certificate issued for my beautiful daughter, Roxane. I had spoken to 5 people before I got anyone who had an inkling what a Stillbirth Certificate even is. She was stillborn in November, and I still have not received this. Has anyone in the NYC area done this? Any recommendations on how to speed this up? Thanks so much for your help.

SaltyDonut · February 2013

Wow, that's a long time to wait! A close friend of mine got hers about a month/month & a half after her loss. I still haven't received mine but my loss was only a month ago (we're both in the BX). I'm surprised the hospital couldn't give you a solid answer to the policy& procedure.... unfortunately 311 is useless, unless you're calling about alt. side parking.. Have you tried contacting the NYC Dept of Records directly?? I'm sorry for the extra headaches, as if getting through our days isn't enough!

Noethola · February 2013

We received a copy of the death report that the hospital sent to the funeral home. They filled out parts of it to when they cremated her. That paperwork, they sent in to the state.

I then had to fill out paperwork and send it in to the vital statistics office of Ohio. (Same paperwork that you would use to ask for a copy of a birth or death certificate, it had a special check box for still birth.) I got the certificate within 8 weeks.

cmenasco · February 2013

Oregon I guess doesn't do either.....unless I missed something, but that day is still a blurr after the fact. They said they don't do a birth cert since they were still born and don't do a death cert since they were never "alive". And they don't do a "stillborn" cert either. So we went home with a box of pictures and ashes to pick up later. I hope you get your answers soon and don't have to keep asking person after person, I know that can be so frustrating!!

OSUWifey09 · February 2013

That's so weird that it's not clear cut what the rules are about that...

In Oklahoma, the hospital and funeral home worked together to get a certificate of stillbirth taken care of. The hospital provided the information to the funeral home, the funeral home sent the paperwork off to the state vital records office [and I gave the funeral home a check to pay for two official copies of the stillbirth certificate to be sent to us], and it took about 6 weeks to receive the certificates. Mine was a little more complicated, because a different OB oversaw the induction/delivery [I was out of town when I lost my son], so both the delivering OB and my home OB had to sign off. That took awhile.

I'm sorry you're getting the run-around and hope you get answers soon.

Heatherhah · February 2013

You would do best to call your vital records office in your state they would know how to get the certificate. Here in Maryland it is called a "Certificate of life resulting in stillbirth" we also received a death certificate as well. Hope that helps.

My mom works for vital records in Maryland and she said few people even know about the document so she pushed to get this for me since not many peole know about it.

Heather

HullGut · February 2013

I don't know much about this, but I just wanted to say I am so sorry that this is such a pain. This should be the last thing you are worrying about and spending time on.

meli1025 · February 2013

I'm so sorry you're going through this. Did you have a social worker talk to you during or after your delivery? I'm in NJ and the social worker helped me obtain all of my documents and knew where to go, what to do, etc. for everything I needed. Also, the funeral director was able to call the hospital and obtain Ava's certificate. I wish you didn't have to do all of this yourself. ((hugs))

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