NHS guidelines have power to bring positive change
NHS England has announced research that indicates around 600 stillborn babies a year could be saved if maternity units followed new guidelines. Currently there are around 3,000 stillbirths in the UK each year, at an average of around one out of every 200 babies born.
The Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle has recently been introduced to a number of hospitals and is already demonstrating its efficacy in saving lives. Furthermore, the guidelines have proved useful in achieving better detection rates of small babies, with hospitals that adopt the guidelines achieving a 59 per cent better success rate in this regard.
The guidelines promote a more proactive approach for hospitals and are described as a “bold step towards introducing many evidence-based and policy recommendations in maternity care towards the goal of reducing stillbirth in the UK”.
The document advises intervention to reduce cigarette smoking among parents, increased education regarding reduced fetal movements, enhanced monitoring during labour and greater efforts to detect small babies.
It is undoubtedly positive news for parents. Anything that can be done to improve childbirth outcomes should be welcomed; there is no trauma comparable to that of losing a child. However, it is now incumbent on the NHS to ensure that the new guidelines are effectively rolled out in all UK hospitals.
Dr Matthew Jolly, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist and National Clinical Director for Maternity and Women’s Health at NHS England, said that the research gave hope that stillbirth rates could be reduced. He also expressed his gratitude to the staff who have overseen the successful implementation of the guidelines at a select number of hospitals.
Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, commented, “We still have more to do but these results demonstrate really positive progress towards our ambition to halve the rates of stillbirth, neonatal death and maternal death by 2025.”
Stillbirth devastates lives, and with trials suggesting that implementation of The Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle could save 600 lives a year, the NHS should waste no time in rolling out the guidelines right across the UK. Anything that improves childbirth outcomes is good for parents and good for the country.
