Sample Letters to Your Elected Officials

Your letters to elected officials can help effect change. Legislators rely on letters to learn what their constituents care about. And making contact with your elected officials through letters is a good way for you to begin an ongoing relationship. Click here to find your representative, or visit Congress.org, a useful resource for civic participation.

This sample letter around a stillbirth bill that was voted on in Congress in 2011 can help you get started. You can adapt this resource to use in your advocacy efforts.

Tip: Your letter will be more effective if you write it in your own words, include a personal story and keep it to one page.

Dear (Insert Elected Official Name),

I am writing to encourage you to support and cosponsor the Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act.

Each year, nearly one in every 160 pregnancies in the United States ends in stillbirth. Despite this staggering statistic, there has been little research conducted on this type of pregnancy loss. Experts say that at least 50 percent of these deaths happen in the third trimester and many times there is no obvious explanation for the death. At least 15 percent happen during labor and delivery, devastating patients who had expected to deliver a healthy baby.

Currently there is no standard federal definition of stillbirth nor is there a standard protocol for the collection of stillbirth data, making any comprehensive research effort into the causes and prevention of stillbirth nearly impossible. These parents and their babies deserve more.

This bill addresses all of the problems with current stillbirth data collection methods and a lack of public awareness. Specifically, this bill would:

• Establish a National Stillbirth Registry under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
• Instruct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to determine a standard definition of stillbirth and a standard protocol for collecting stillbirth data in consultation with all interested entities;
• Encourage NIH to allocate more resources to stillbirth research;
• Authorize an awareness campaign on good prenatal care practices and fetal movement awareness, which may reduce the incidence of stillbirths.

Please help work to ensure that someday parents will never again have to fear the loss of a child to stillbirth.

YOUR NAME
MAILING ADDRESS (Make sure you include your address and zip code to verify that you are a constituent.)
EMAIL