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Stillbirth is a devastating loss for women and their families. Historically, stillbirths have not been included in global mortality estimates and, even with recent efforts to include them,1 the rate of stillbirths has largely been underestimated. Challenges to accurate reporting of stillbirths include social stigma and misclassification with miscarriage or early neonatal deaths.2 Since 1984, one of the primary methods to quantify mortality in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) has been the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).3 Despite substantial investment of time and resources in the DHS programme worldwide, the quality of data arising from these surveys has been variable.4 Few research studies have attempted to uncover the underlying reasons for this variation5 and, to date, no randomised trials (the gold standard for research) have been done to improve DHS methodology.
