---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO VITAL STATISTICS."
description: "This Act replaces the stillbirth certificate with a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth, clarifies what documentation is required upon the occurrence of a stillbirth, and makes technical corrections to the Vital Statistics laws to accurately reflect current practices. This Act does not change the current reporting requirements regarding births or deaths."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "149"
identifier: "SB 3"
citation: "Delaware SB 3 (149)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["David Bentz", "John L. Mitchell", "Nicole Poore"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 7
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2017-06-06"
last_action: "2017-08-09"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/27e19a28-5cdc-4905-823b-91b7863e70e0"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=25467"
source_hash: "3d6a697a70dc367f6593f2b21e4303cb1e2f345c480d4a9ebf49969b49b5a0ae"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware SB 3 (149) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 16 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO VITAL STATISTICS.

This Act replaces the stillbirth certificate with a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth, clarifies what documentation is required upon the occurrence of a stillbirth, and makes technical corrections to the Vital Statistics laws to accurately reflect current practices. This Act does not change the current reporting requirements regarding births or deaths.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=25467&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SB3)

## Votes

- SM — **21–0** (pass) · upper
- SM — **41–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- David Bentz — primary (person)
- John L. Mitchell — primary (person)
- Nicole Poore — primary (person)
- Brian Pettyjohn — cosponsor (person)
- Bruce C. Ennis — cosponsor (person)
- Daniel B. Short — cosponsor (person)
- Deborah Hudson — cosponsor (person)
- Gerald W. Hocker — cosponsor (person)
- Helene M. Keeley — cosponsor (person)
- John Walsh — cosponsor (person)
- Joseph E. Miro — cosponsor (person)
- Kimberly Williams — cosponsor (person)
- Melanie George Smith — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2017-06-06** Introduced and Assigned to Health, Children & Social Services Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2017-06-07** Reported Out of Committee (Health, Children & Social Services) in Senate with 5 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2017-06-08** Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES `passage`
- **2017-06-09** Assigned to Health & Human Development Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2017-06-21** Reported Out of Committee (Health & Human Development) in House with 8 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2017-06-30** Passed By House. Votes: 41 YES `passage`
- **2017-08-09** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/27e19a28-5cdc-4905-823b-91b7863e70e0`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).