Since 2022, ProPublica reporter Duaa Eldeib has been investigating why American parents are experiencing stillbirths as other countries make larger strides to reduce deaths late in pregnancy. Her reporting was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in the explanatory reporting category. 

After years of reporting, her investigation is seeing monumental impact: The National Institutes of Health announced last week that it has launched a five-year, $37 million stillbirth consortium in a pivotal effort to reduce what it has called the country’s “unacceptably high” stillbirth rate.

“There’s no question that the ProPublica reporting was intimately tied to this,” one expert said.

Debbie Haine Vijayvergiya, who was featured in a ProPublica documentary about her experience with stillbirth, has spent years asking Congress to support stillbirth legislation.

“I feel like our moment has finally arrived, and we are being included in all this tremendously important lifesaving work that’s being done,” she said.