AN investigation has been launched into a spike in deaths among newborn babies in Scotland.
Official figures reveal that 21 infants died during September within 28 days of birth, causing the neonatal mortality rate to breach an upper warning threshold known as the ‘control limit’ for the first time in at least four years.
Control and warning limits are designed to flag up to public health teams when neonatal, stillbirth or other infant deaths are occurring at unexpectedly high or low levels which may not be due to chance.
Concerns have previously been raised about the potential impact of Covid on maternity services and maternal wellbeing, but it is the first time since the pandemic began that neonatal deaths have been so abnormally above average.
The neonatal mortality rate in September, at 4.9 per 1000 live births, was significantly above average
Although the rate fluctuates month to month, the figure for September – at 4.9 per 1000 live births – is on a par with levels that were last typically seen in the late 1980s.
Public Health Scotland (PHS), which is one of the bodies currently investigating the spike, said the fact that the upper control limit has been exceeded “indicates there is a higher likelihood that there are factors beyond random variation that may have contributed to the number of deaths that occurred”.
PHS said it is working with the Scottish National Neonatal Network, the Maternity and Children Quality Improvement Collaborative and the Scottish Government “to understand any possible contributing factors to the most recent infant mortality patterns, and to incorporate findings into existing prevention and improvement work”.
Monthly figures on neonatal death rates are only available up to July 2017, but previously peaked at 3.7 per 1000 lives births in March 2020.
Annual statistics on neonatal mortality published by the National Records of Scotland show that it has been in steady decline for decades, falling from an average of 4.7 per 1000 live births in 1986-1990 to 2.2 per 1000 by 2016-2020.
Worldwide, the most common causes of neonatal death are infection, prematurity, and suffocation, but factors such as…
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