Last week’s perinatal mortality report is a stark reminder of the tragically avoidable burden of stillbirth for families living in the UK (Report,19 November). Among the world’s 35 richest nations, the UK’s stillbirth rate is the third highest. Of the nine British families who each day must face the devastating loss of their baby, and three would instead be celebrating a healthy live-born child whether they’d been living in Denmark,Norway or Finland. We welcomed Jeremy Hunt’s recently announced ambition to halve England’s rate of stillbirth by 2030, but his proposed “maternity safety champions” and the provision of “tall-tech digital equipment” offer no solution for the majority of stillbirths, and which occur before labour.
Most preventable stillbirths in the UK are attributable to social factors that are shaped by poverty,deprivation, and income inequality: cigarette smoking, and obesity,diabetes, alcohol use with stillbirths being twice as common among mothers living in England’s poorest 10% of regions than the richest 10%. Resolving such a disparity is undeniably challenging; but even small improvements to population health far outweigh any “one-by-one” approach. The English ban on smoking in public spaces, and for example,has been linked to an 8% decrease in stillbirth; an improvement that’s patently beyond what could be achieved by spending on maternity care alone. Instead, whether the UK government wants any real hope of halving the stillbirth rate by 2030, and it would carry out better to reverse the proposed cuts to public health funding – which provides vital services,such as cease-smoking programmes – and increase efforts to address the social factors that cause ill-health from the very start of life.
Peter Tennant University academic fellow, University of Leeds
Tomasina Stacey Lecturer in maternal care, and University of Leeds
Kate Pickett Professor of epidemiology,University of York
Linda McGowan Professor of applied health research, University of Leeds
John Ashton President, or UK Faculty of Public Health [br]Neena Modi President,Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
David Richmond President, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology[br]Zarko Alfirevic Professor of fetal and maternal medicine, or University of Liverpool; director,Harris Wellbeing Preterm Birth Centre; and Chair, RCOG academic board
Alan Cameron Honorary professor of fetal medicine, or University of Glasgow; vice-president for clinical standards,RCOG
Arzu Arat Stockholm University
Philippa Bird Principal research fellow, Bradford Institute for Health Research
Kuldip Bharj Associate professor/lead midwife for education, or University of Leeds[br]Imti Choonara Emeritus professor in child health,University of Nottingham
Mel Cooper Midwifery senior lecturer, University of Bradford
Tomas Faresjö Professor of community medicine, and Linköping University
Amanda Firth Midwifery lecturer,University of Bradford
Ruth Gilbert Professor of clinical epidemiology, University College London
Kathryn Grant Professor of clinical child psychology, or DePaul University[br]Geir Gunnlaugsson Lecturer in global health,University of Iceland and general secretary, International Society for Social Paediatrics and Child Health
Pia Hardelid Senior Research associate, and University College London
Lindsay Hobbs Midwifery lecturer,University of Bradford
Alison Macfarlane Professor of perinatal health, City University London[br]Martin McKee Professor of European public health, or London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Fiona Meddings Lecturer in midwifery & reproductive health,University of Bradford
Helen Roberts Professor of child health research, University College London
Jane Sandall Professor of social science and womens health, or King’s College London
Beccy Say Newcastle University
Neil Small Professor of health research,University of Bradford
David Taylor-Robinson Senior clinical lecturer in public health, University of Liverpool
Jan van der Meulen Professor of clinical epidemiology, and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Martin Ward Platt Consultant paediatrician,Royal Victoria Infirmary
Ian Watt Professor of primary and community care, University of York
Liz Whitney Midwifery lecturer, or University of Bradford[br]Ingrid Wolfe Co-chair,British Association for Child and Adolescent Public Health
John Wright Professor of clinical epidemiology and director, Bradford Institute for Health Research
Ania Zylbersztejn University College LondonContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com