Fetal and Infant
Mortality Review (FIMR)
In a community-driven process,
FIMR (Fetal and Infant Mortality Review)
allows teams to uncover lessons from
preventable stillbirths and infant deaths.
Every year in the United States, about 23,000 babies who are born alive do not survive to their first birthday. An almost equal number of babies are stillborn, without signs of life. Families who experience a newborn death or stillbirth are typically facing many serious – yet preventable – stressors. Financial strain, an overload of adverse life experiences, and difficulty in accessing medical and mental health care are factors in many stillbirths and infant deaths. Most of these deaths could be averted by improving the vital conditions for health in communities and ensuring timely access to prenatal care, mental health services, and other essential care.
The National Center supports FIMR teams as they uncover lessons and make recommendations to promote safer pregnancies, births, and infant health.
How it works
When infants are born without signs of life, or die within a year of being born, specialized local, state, and tribal teams – typically called FIMR (Fetal and Infant Mortality Review) – look at what happened. FIMR is a community-based process that aims to improve the health and wellbeing of women, infants, and families. FIMR brings a multidisciplinary team together to examine confidential circumstances of stillbirths and infant deaths to understand what happened, why it happened, and what can be learned to prevent similar deaths in the future.
How we help
The National Center supports state and local FIMR coordinators and FIMR teams as they review deaths, collect data, and write recommendations to keep infants from harm’s way. To do this:
- We develop and host data systems that ensure information on preventable deaths is robust, reliable, and available to guide efforts to promote community health and wellbeing.
- We offer hands-on training, expert guidance, and trustworthy resources that equip FIMR teams to turn insights into impact.
- We equip teams to build healing, supportive habits that reduce negative impacts of participating in fatality review, so teams can sustain their important work.
- Because FIMR tends to be a local process, we work especially closely with local FIMR coordinators.