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A bill introduced by Democratic State Sen. Timothy Kennedy – whose 63rd District represents most of Buffalo – would add birth of a stillborn child as a qualifying condition for receiving Paid Family Leave benefits.
An earlier version of the bill passed the senate in March 2023, but it was not voted on in the assembly.
Speaking on the senate floor before its passage in the chamber, Kennedy told his colleagues that the legislation is personal to him and his wife, whose baby daughter died in 2007 just four minutes after she was born.
“That truly was a life-changing moment that I think about every day. We were one of the lucky ones not just to have held our baby girl, Bridgette, but to have spent those four minutes with her in this life," he said.
“In those four minutes we qualified for insurance, my wife qualified for disability, we qualified for a certificate of birth to recognize that Bridgette Nicole existed and came into this life and had those moments with us, and we qualified for a certificate of death.”
The fate of the bill, which is currently held up in the senate’s Labor Committee, remains to be seen.
Stillbirths affect nearly 1 in 175 births, and each year about 21,000 babies are stillborn in the United States, according to the CDC. They are more common among certain groups of people, including women who:
- are Black
- are 35 years of age or older
- are of low socioeconomic status
- smoke cigarettes during pregnancy
- have certain medical conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity
- have multiple pregnancies such as triplets or quadruplets
- have had a previous pregnancy loss
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