Research needed into baby deaths

Most stillborn baby deaths which occur during labour "may have been preventable", says the head of a new study into baby and mother deaths.
A report from the Perinatal and Maternal Review Committee released yesterday found 700 babies died in New Zealand in 2008, during pregnancy, birth or shortly after birth - one in every 100.
Of those, 379 were stillborn, including 75 who died during labour and were full-term, full size babies, whose death could have been prevented, committee chairwoman, obstetrics professor Cindy Farquhar said.
"The intrapartum [during labour] stillbirth rate continues to be of concern as the majority of these babies are full-term and not small for gestational age, and therefore may have been preventable deaths."
But only half of families agreed to post-mortems, so "we can't work out why they died, which is a bit shocking", she said.
"A portion" appeared to be from lack of oxygen during birth but she hoped next year's study would provide more answers.
New Zealand's baby death rate, while similar to those in Australia and the UK, outstripped deaths from crashes and breast cancer, yet failed to get much attention, Prof Farquhar said.
"Often babies who die around the time of birth are kind of invisible ... they haven't become known to the wider community, so it's often poorly recognised how much loss there is to a family and whanau."
She said a new working group on neonatal deaths would be reviewing the deaths and hoped to provide some answers from 2009 data.
The committee called on the Health Ministry and District Health Boards to provide more research into why babies of Pacific Island, Maori, teenaged and over-40 mothers died, as well as those who live in low socio-economic areas, to avoid "possibly preventable" deaths.
More work was needed on why so few families chose post-mortem, and also into links between baby deaths, smoking and obesity where there was a lack of national data, she said. Of all the babies who died, 28 per cent came from mothers who smoked. Almost half, 49 per cent of women who had stillbirths, were overweight, as were 45 per cent of mothers of newborns who died.
Prof Farquhar said this year's report revealed where further investigation was needed. Next year, she hoped the committee could provide a figure on how many baby deaths were preventable and what the causes were.
"We want to identify where these deaths can be prevented and really get the message out there and make a difference for those ones."
Yesterday was International Baby Loss Awareness Day
Family lights candle for Tabitha Rose on awareness day
Family lights candle for Tabitha Rose on awareness day Laura Hurley's baby girl died in her uterus at 38 weeks, just under a year ago, after an apparently normal pregnancy, her first.
"I hadn't felt her move and we went down to the hospital and they found no heartbeat and the next day they induced me," Ms Hurley said.
"She came home with us for a week after she was born and we had a little service for her about a week later.
"It was really nice to be able to do that."
The baby was given the name of Tabitha Rose and Ms Hurley said her family lit a candle last night in her remembrance - and to mark International Baby Loss Awareness day. The Lower Hutt woman said talking about Tabitha Rose helped keep the memory alive.
"It's something that you don't necessarily hear a lot about, especially when women are pregnant."
Ms Hurley said while they were offered a post-mortem examination, they decided not to.
"When you have been through something like that, when you know what a post-mortem involves ... I can imagine that lots of people don't want to put their babies through that."
But she said if the reasons why a post-mortem examination might help prevent other deaths in future was better explained, more parents might agree.
Vicki Culling, who is on the Perinatal and Maternity Mortality Committee, chairs baby loss support group SANDS and a bereaved parent herself, said she hoped yesterday's report from the committee would highlight the lack of awareness over the staggering number of newborn babies, or in-utero babies, who died each year - 700.
That included babies who were terminated due to abnormalities.
She said New Zealand had a high rate of third trimester, unexplained still births. Yesterday's report was leading the world in trying to find out why.