Excess baby deaths investigation

Excess baby deaths investigation

Oct 19, 2022
Dr. John Campbell

Review of spikes in Neonatal Mortality ordered by Scotland

https://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/governance_and_assurance/programme_resources/neonatal_mortality_in_scotland.aspx

Healthcare Improvement Scotland, asked by Scottish Government

Review of significant increase in neonatal mortality

2021 to 2022

Scottish Government orders review as neonatal deaths higher than expected

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63097142

Neonatal death rates, two spikes over six-months

September 2021, at least 21 babies under 4 weeks died

March 2022, at least 18 babies under 4 weeks died

Average mortality rate among newborns

Two per 1,000 births.

In September 2021, 4.9 per 1,000 births

March 2020, 4.6 per 1,000 births

For all of 2021, 3.9 infant deaths for every thousand live births

For all of 2020, 3.1

(A preliminary investigation found the September spike was not linked to Covid)

This form of monitoring introduced, July 2017

Dr Sarah Stock, maternal and foetal medicine, University of Edinburgh

https://www.scotsman.com/health/scottish-government-orders-review-as-neonatal-deaths-higher-than-expected-3863538

I think the numbers are really troubling and I don't think we know the reasons why yet.

What we do know it's not neonatal Covid – the rates of Covid-19 infection in babies are very low and deaths from Covid are thankfully very, very small,

so this isn't Covid affecting babies

Covid Scotland: Vaccines ruled out in neonatal deaths spike

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23028843.covid-scotland-vaccines-ruled-cause-neonatal-deaths-spike/?ref=rss

PUBLIC health experts ruled out any link between spikes in neonatal deaths and the Covid vaccine

without checking whether any of the infants' mothers had received the jag during pregnancy.

Experts stressed, no “plausible” link to justify investigating maternal vaccination status.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) said its consultants had given “careful consideration” to the “potential benefits and harms” of carrying out such as analysis as part of its probe into the tragic deaths of 39 infants,

but concluded against doing so

PHS added

A risk that “identifying the vaccination status of the mothers, even at aggregate level,

would result in harm to those individuals and others close to them,

through actual or perceived judgement of the effects of their personal vaccination decision”

Furthermore

“the outcomes of such analysis, whilst being uninformative for public health decision making,

had the potential to be used to harm vaccine confidence at this critical time”

PHS response, “We do not have any plans to examine maternal vaccination status, as there is no public health reason to do so”.

NHS logging baby deaths as stillbirths ‘to avoid scrutiny’

hhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/16/nhs-logging-baby-deaths-stillbirths-avoid-scrutiny/

Families call into question trusts’ transparency after hospital accounts clash with their experience

NHS hospitals have claimed that babies born alive were stillborn

prompting accusations they were trying to avoid scrutiny.

Six children who died before they left hospital were wrongly described as stillborn.

Several of the children lived for minutes and one lived for five days.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-powers-to-investigate-stillbirths

At present, coroners can only hold inquests for babies who have shown signs of life after being born.

The babies identified by The Telegraph should have been recorded as neonatal deaths, but staff claimed they were stillbirths

‘Our baby was alive for five days but was recorded as a stillbirth’