By Deidre McPhillips, CNN

(CNN) — The US stillbirth rate dropped 2% last year, according to data published Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a hopeful improvement after a turbulent few years.

But there were still nearly 20,000 fetal deaths in 2024, CDC data shows, more than 5.4 for every 1,000 live births and pregnancies with gestations longer than 20 weeks.

That rate is the lowest it’s been in decades, but the CDC does not necessarily consider it to be a record low.

Stillbirths have been generally trending down in the US: The rate fell from 7.5 for every 1,000 live births and pregnancies with gestations longer than 20 weeks in 1990 down to 5.7 in 2019. But the rate ticked up in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic and has fluctuated in the years since, and the decline in 2024 essentially brought the stillbirth rate back to where it was in 2022.

According to the new CDC report, the decline in the stillbirth rate last year was driven by significant change in three states: Colorado, which had a 14% drop; Utah, which had a 16% drop, and Mississippi, which saw a 21% drop in fetal mortality between 2023 and 2024.

Despite the decrease, Mississippi still has a higher stillbirth rate than any other state, at 7.8, but officials in the state are taking action. Earlier this year, Mississippi declared a public health emergency over the rising infant mortality rate. The move creates opportunities to mobilize resources to address the issue, such as investments to activate a standardized system for maternal and infant care and eliminate maternity care deserts.

And despite the nationwide improvement last year, especially in stillbirths during the third trimester, experts say much more work is needed to continue to bring the stillbirth rate down.

“Stillbirths affect just as many families as do infant deaths each year,” said Ashley Stoneburner, director of applied research and analytics with March of Dimes, a nonprofit focused on infant and maternal health.

“It’s a really large problem, and a lot of the risk factors that we see for infant mortality, especially very early infant deaths, are the same that we see for babies that are born still,” she said.

In September, the US National Institutes of Health launched a five-year, $37 million Stillbirth Research Consortium to support efforts that reduce the risk of stillbirth.

Research suggests that about a quarter of stillbirths are preventable, but most — up to 60% – “remain unexplained even after exclusion of common causes, such as congenital abnormalities, genetic factors, and obstetric complications,” NIH said in a news release about the new consortium.

Other factors that increase the risk for stillbirth include medical conditions among mothers — such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity and substance use during pregnancy — as well as high levels of stress some environmental exposures including extreme heat and pollution, Stoneburner says.

“There’s a lot of socioeconomic factors that increase the risk for stillbirth as well, and those are things like lack of access to health care or belonging to a certain ethnic minority groups,” she said.

March of Dimes’ 2025 report card highlighted a worrisome decline in the share of pregnant women who are receiving prenatal care in their first trimester and “persistent inequities and rising health risks.”

The new CDC report shows that stillbirth rates have been consistently highest among mothers who are Black and those who are Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. Rates of about 10 fetal deaths for every 1,000 live births and pregnancies with gestations longer than 20 weeks for these groups are twice as high as they are among mothers who are Asian, White or Hispanic.

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