Singapore’s perinatal mortality rate (stillbirth / silent birth) is amongst the lowest in the world at 5 per 1000 births. However, part of stillbirth decline could be attributed to the increasing elective abortion rates, where fetus found to be chromosomally abnormal or malformed are aborted.
In Singapore, a baby is considered still born from week 28 of gestation. Prior to that a woman is regarded as having a miscarriage. Every year about 80-120 babies are born stillborn in Singapore.
According to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, Singapore:
In the case of every still birth it shall, unless there has been an inquest, be the duty of the person who would, if the child had been born alive, have been required by section 9 to give information concerning the birth, to give information within 14 days after the still birth has taken place to any deputy registrar of the local registration area in which the still birth occurred of the particulars required to be registered concerning the still birth and every such person on giving information shall either —
(a) deliver to the deputy registrar a written certificate in the prescribed form that the child was not born alive, signed by a medical practitioner or a registered midwife within the meaning of the Nurses and Midwives Act 1999 who was in attendance at the birth, or by a medical practitioner who has examined the body of the child; or
(b) make a declaration in the prescribed form to the effect that no medical practitioner or registered midwife was present at the birth, or that no medical practitioner has examined the body, or that a certificate as required in paragraph (a) cannot be obtained and that the child was not born alive.
