State considers issuing birth certificates for stillborns
By Andrea Fanta The Associated Press
Posted February 23 2006

TALLAHASSEE Eight months into her pregnancy, on Mother's Day, Beth Logullo's baby stopped moving. Two days later, her baby, Katherine, was born still and silent.

"There wasn't a dry eye in the room," husband Daryl Logullo said. "I call her an angel baby because she was born perfect and sleeping."

Katherine was wrapped, weighed, footprinted and cremated. But when Daryl Logullo went to collect his child's remains and request her birth certificate, he learned there would be none.

On Wednesday, the House Health Care committee unanimously approved the "Missing Angels" bill (HB 439) to create birth certificates for pregnancies that last 20 weeks and end in the natural delivery of stillborn infants. Last week, a Senate committee unanimously approved similar legislation (SB 746). Daryl Logullo supports the legislation.

Other bills have been unsuccessful in past sessions, and this year's legislation has a long road ahead, with five House and Senate committee hearings still scheduled. Story