Still births

Still births are a terrible tragedy for mothers, fathers and the whole family.Everyone wants to avoid such  loss. Not every loss can be avoided but we urgently need more research and action on this. We cannot close one of the best hospitals in this field.

The Liverpool Women’s Hospital performs 10% better than the national average, despite the risk factors for mothers living in poverty and for Black or Black British Asian or Asian British.

The UK mortality rate for babies of 7.3 per 1,000 births is high when compared with some of our European neighbours. If the UK could match mortality rates achieved in Sweden and Norway, for instance, the lives of at least 1,000 babies could be saved every year.

The UK rates for still birth (babies who go to the end of pregnancy and die at, or just before, birth) are not as good as other developed countries

In 2014 in the UK: *

• one in every 219 births was a stillbirth
• one in every 384 babies died within the first 4 weeks of life

*Data from the Office for National Statistics, 2016 https://www.uk-sands.org/research

15 babies died every day in the UK up to 2013. There has been slight fall in the rates of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in the UK compared with rates in 2013. There were 4,722 extended perinatal deaths (3,286 stillbirths and 1,436 neonatal deaths) occurring in the UK to babies born at 24+0 weeks gestational age or greater in 2013, https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/downloads/files/mbrrace-uk/reports/MBRRACE-UK%20Perinatal%20Surveillance%20Report%202013.pdf

The rate of stillbirth deaths in the UK is higher than Poland, Croatia and Estonia and the rate of change is slower. On average, the number of stillbirths in the UK has fallen 1.8% since 2000, compared with 3.5% in Poland and 6.8% in the Netherlands.

The Lancet ranked Britain 21 out of 35 developed nations for stillbirth rates, and 114 out of 164 countries for improvements over the past 15 years

Merseyside is an at risk area

“A wide deprivation gap exists in stillbirth rates for most causes and is not diminishing. Unexplained antepartum stillbirths accounted for 50% of the deprivation gap, and a better understanding of these stillbirths is necessary to reduce socioeconomic inequalities.” http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/3/e001100.full

Those with less money are more likely to have still births. Scientists still don’t fully understand why. Official Statistics showed 2.1 deaths per 1,000 births to professional mothers The figure was 5.3 per 1,000 births to mums doing manual or routine work.

There are more than 60,000 children in Merseyside living below the poverty line according to Public Health England which must put Merseyside mums at greater risk.

for more information http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Stillbirth/Pages/Prevention.aspx

 We need to keep our hospital.