If a baby is born after 24 weeks of pregnancy but showed no sign of life after birth, it's known as a stillbirth (as long as the baby was alive at 24 weeks).

Registrations should be made within 42 days.

The hospital will make a medical certificate of stillbirth and send it to the register office. Once they've received this, they'll call you to make a registration appointment.

You do not need to register if:

  • the birth took place after 24 weeks of pregnancy but the baby had died before 24 weeks
  • the birth took place before 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Baby loss certificates

If your pregnancy ends before 24 weeks, you can get a certificate in memory of your baby. 

You do not need to request a certificate, they are optional.

Request a baby loss certificate.

Who can register a stillbirth

A birth mother can register a stillbirth by themselves.

If the birth mother is married or in a civil partnership, one parent can register or the parents can register together.

If the parents are not married, they can register the stillbirth together.

If they cannot go together, the parent who cannot go must complete a declaration of acknowledgement of parentage form and give it to the parent who is making the registration.

Female couples who used fertility treatment

If the couple were married at the time of treatment, either parent can register the stillbirth. If they were not married at this time, the birth mother must go to the registration appointment. 

Where to register a stillbirth

If the stillbirth took place in Medway, you should register at Medway Register Office.

If you cannot register local to where the stillbirth took place

You'll need to visit another register office and make a declaration of stillbirth.

Find a register office

That register office will produce a declaration which is signed and posted to the register office local to where the stillbirth took place.

The register office local to where the stillbirth took place will then make the registration. Stillbirth certificates can be made and ordered from this register office. 

Stillbirths outside the UK 

You must register the stillbirth in the country where it took place.