Lawmakers are considering a bill that would offer a tax credit to help ease the burden of the unexpected costs associated with one of the hardest days a parent could experience — the stillbirth of a child.

For two Maryland mothers who still mourn, years after the trauma of stillbirth, the bill sends a bigger message — that the children they lost mattered.

“One of the hardest parts about being stillbirth parents is that you feel this love for your child, but nobody can see that because they’re not here,” Jessica Brady Reader, a Kensington resident, said after a hearing Thursday on Senate Bill 414.

“And so from a symbolic standpoint, this bill is very important, I think, for giving families that satisfaction — that their child counted,” she said.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), would create a one-time $1,000 tax credit for families of a stillborn child to help offset the unexpected medical and funeral costs that families endure.

Those financial burdens add to the costs invested in preparing their home for the arrival of their newborn – a day that, for those families, did not come.

“Giving birth to a stillborn baby is one of the most traumatic things a mother can go through. And of course it impacts the entire family as well,” Waldstreicher told the Ways and Means Committee Thursday. Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher testifies on his bill to provide tax credits to families of stillborn children to ease the financial toll on grieving families. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters).

SB414 received unanimous support in the Senate earlier this month. With a fiscal note of some $360,000 annually — a drop in the state’s $67 billion budget bucket — Waldstreicher hopes the House will move the legislation as well.

“That trauma is compounded by financial impacts,” he testified. “In preparing for a live birth, they prepare the nursery — buy the crib, buy a car seat, stock up on clothing and diapers. And of course, the financial costs don’t end there. Suddenly, there are funeral costs – the service, the casket and the burial plot.”

That’s what Reader experienced in 2021. She was nearly 38-weeks pregnant when she lost her daughter, Francesca.

“Nothing could prepare us for the devastation of coming home from the hospital without our baby, or that year of firsts as we grieved our precious daughter,” she told the committee. “We needed to make arrangements in a matter of days, while I was postpartum and recovering from birth.

“A thousand dollars of unexpected expenses is crushing. So when Tax Day came, and it felt like nothing about Francesca counted, I felt yet another low point,” she said.

Lauren Petit, who lives just outside Annapolis, shared a similar story in her testimony. She and her husband were “bombarded with information and forced to make rapid, heartbreaking decisions” about funeral arrangements after losing their daughter when Petit was 20-weeks pregnant in 2020.

“We had to decide what to do with Ava’s remains,” she said. “Could we afford a funeral? Would we want one? Would we need grief counseling? These were unimaginable choices for grieving parents to make in such a short time. Fortunately, may husband and I had the resources … but not every family is as fortunate.”

Petit has testified for the legislation before. In 2022, she came before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee with then-Sen. Sarah Elfreth (D-Anne Arundel), who was sponsoring the bill at the time. Petit relayed the same story then, with the pain of her stillbirth just two years old.

It was the same year the General Assembly was considering what would ultimately become a ballot question to add reproductive rights to the Maryland Constitution. Waldstreicher believes that the political climate then may have contributed to why the stillbirth tax credit bill stalled in 2022.

“That year was a complicated year, because we were dealing with unrelated issues that could accidentally be conflated with this bill,” he said. “And I think some people conflated issues — perhaps some people wanted to conflate issues — but we don’t have that issue this year.

“I think this bill is now standing on its own and people understand, from both the Republican and Democratic perspectives, that it should move forward,” Waldstreicher said.

If it becomes law, Petit and Reader hope the measure inspires more attention, funding and research into the issue of stillbirth in the state.

According to 2021 data from the Star Legacy Foundation , about half of stillborn cases in Maryland do not cite a cause of death. That was the case for Reader, who said “it’s deeply painful for the parents who want to understand why there was this loss.”

“And it’s quite frustrating because we could and should … dedicate more research into the prevention side, which includes doing research as to what causes stillbirth, what are some of the co-occurring conditions that can arise, and how can we treat those better.” she said.

“This tax credit is … an important moment to recognize that there is so much work that still needs to be done about stillbirth,” Reader said. “It is so important that this issue is receiving attention through our legislation.”

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