Nearly 1,000 babies die each year, or are severely disabled, because of potentially avoidable harm in labour. Suzanne Callander looks at the key messages from a series of reports.
According to a report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) there is a need for improvements in the quality of local investigations into stillbirths, neonatal deaths and severe brain injuries. The College has called for more robust and comprehensive local reviews to ensure that lessons are learnt and improvements made.
This report follows the launch by RCOG of the ‘Each Baby Counts’ national quality improvement programme in October 2014. Of 800,000 births in the UK, 0.1% of babies are intrapartum stillbirths, early neonatal deaths or severe brain injuries. Before the programme started there was very little evidence available about the scale or causes of intrapartum harm to babies. Each Baby Counts aims to change this and has a goal of halving the number of such events by 2020.
Data from the report comes from 921 babies that were reported to the Each Baby Counts programme, which has a 100% participation rate with UK NHS hospital Trusts. Of these, 71% were classified as having severe brain injuries. A total of 654 were classified as early neonatal deaths and 119 stillbirths that occurred during term labour.
Log in or register FREE to read the rest
This story is Premium Content and is only available to registered users. Please log in at the top of the page to view the full text.
If you don't already have an account, please register with us completely free of charge.
