In the early 20th century, when a stillbirth occurred, the baby was taken and discarded and the parents were expected to immediately let go of the attachment and try for another baby. In many countries, parents are expected by friends and family members to recover from the loss of an unborn baby very soon after it happens. Societally-mediated complications such as financial hardship and depression are among the more common results. A stillbirth can have significant psychological effects on the parents, notably causing feelings of guilt in the mother. Further psycho-social effects on parents include apprehension, anger, feelings of worthlessness and not wanting to interact with other people, with these reactions sometimes carried over into pregnancies that occur after the stillbirth. Men also suffer psychologically after stillbirth, although they are more likely to hide their grief and feelings and try to act strong, with the focus on supporting their partner. Legal definitions
Australia
In Australia, stillbirth is defined as a baby born with no signs of life that weighs more than 400 grams, or more than 20 weeks in gestation. They legally must have their birth registered. Austria
In Austria, a stillbirth is defined as a birth of a child of at least 500g weight without vital signs, e.g. blood circulation, breath or muscle movements. Canada
Beginning in 1959, "the definition of a stillbirth was revised to conform, in substance, to the definition of fetal death recommended by the World Health Organization".
Biochemical studies of the enzyme have focused on proteins of ADSL from nonhuman species, the ADSL structure from the crystallized protein of Thermotoga maritime has been used, along with DNA sequencing data, to construct homology models for a variety of other organisms, including human ADSL. A variety of studies have been done using the equivalent enzyme from Bacillus subtilis, which shares a significant percentage of identity along with about some percentage of similarity in amino acid sequence with the human enzyme. Homology models overlaid on each other show a high degree of overlap between the enzymes.The family of enzymes to which ADSL belongs and that catalyze β-eliminations in which fumarate is one of the products are homotetramers with four active sites composed of amino acid residues from three distinct subunits. Much is known about the active site of human ADSL due to studies of the active site in the B. subtilis ADSL through affinity labeling and site-directed mutagenesis. While there is some variability among species in the sequencing of ADSL, the active site of the enzyme contains many residues that are conserved across species and have been shown to be critical to the enzymes function. His68 and His141 seem to serve as the general acid and base catalysts, and are critical to the catalyzing reaction of the substrate. His89 seems to enhance the binding of the substrates phosphoryl group and orient adenylosuccinate for catalysis. All three histidines are conserved throughout the 28 species for which the structure of ADSL is known.