Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Report

13 March 2009
Media Release

Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee Report.

Whenever and wherever a mother or baby dies its tragic effect ripples throughout the community and the figures in the perinatal and maternal report represent families who suffer and grieve. The midwifery profession grieves alongside them and therefore welcomes any data that assists in the development of care practices and insights that come out of this information.

The New Zealand College of Midwives has campaigned and assisted successive governments to work towards a specialised perinatal database. We are therefore very pleased New Zealand now has such a robust systematic process for identifying, analyzing and reviewing maternal and baby deaths in this country.

We are one of a very few countries in the world to have such a comprehensive data system.

This information ensures we examine our health system and incorporate any learning into mainstream services. We have the ability on a national basis to be confident in our services, however this is only six months perinatal data and we look forward to seeing a full year’s data. It will require many years of data to be able to make meaningful recommendations and comparisons with other countries.

New Zealand has a safe and unique integrated woman and baby focused maternity service and these figures support the safety of the services in relation to mortality. However it is also important to look at the trends in morbidity and health outcomes alongside these figures; for example the number of small, low-birth-weight babies has been halved over the last 10 years. The data illustrates the importance of looking at health outcome information as well as mortality and indicates we must increase the support of other services such as mental health services and well child services to ensure mothers and babies continue to have their health needs met.

The New Zealand College of Midwives will continue to actively support its members to collect and provide information that keeps the database current and reliable. Its own electronic client centered processes for doing this are an important adjunct to the national database. New Zealand is working towards a world first in data recording and reporting so that women and their families can continue to trust the New Zealand maternity services.

ENDS

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