Firefighter Runs NYC Marathon For Stillborn Babies

A firefighter ran Sunday's New York City Marathon as a way to bring awareness to stillborn babies.

According to USA Today, Lt. Mark Donohue and his wife lost a daughter earlier this year in a stillbirth.

"This is for my Janey," Donohue said on Facebook Live as he hit mile 26 of the race. Donohue hopped onto the social network and provided a fact about stillborns and then mentioned an individual stillborn at every mile.

"It's an uncomfortable thing for people to talk about," Donohue said. "The silence is deafening. And the silence impedes progress."

A stillbirth occurs when a fetus dies at 20 or more weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1 percent, or about 24,000, of all pregnancies in the United States end in a stillbirth each year.

Donohue and his wife co-founded the New York chapter of a stillbirth research organization called the Star Legacy Foundation.

"We want to let people know that if they go through it, there are people there like us to support them," he said.

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