PERINATAL DAMAGE AND DEATH
What is it?
Until a few decades ago childbirth was dangerous for the mother and her baby. As recently as 1930 between forty and forty-five women in every 10,000 having babies died. Today this figure is one in 10,000. Great progress has been made in saving mothers’ lives and in the 1950s attention turned to improving the lot of the baby. Considerable progress has been made in this direction but there is no room for complacency. Infant mortality today is still a real cause for concern-as many babies die in the first year of life as children and young adults die in the following twenty-four years! Although a few of these deaths are totally unavoidable most are part of a much bigger problem. Some babies are born dead (still-born); some are born alive but too early and so stand a poor chance; others die in the first weeks of life; and yet others live but are handicapped-often for life.
The problem is not a small one in terms of numbers. In 1984 there were 3,640 still-births in England and Wales (who died between the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy and the end of the first week of life). French estimates have suggested that for every one ‘perinatal’ death 2.5 babies survive damaged. There are today about 16,000 damaged babies surviving in England and Wales each year. Some are very little affected and others are grossly handicapped and will live in an institution for all their lives. There are probably a quarter of a million children in the UK in special schools and attending normal schools who are mentally and physically handicapped, and 5,000 children live in long-stay hospitals from which they are unlikely to emerge.
What causes it?
• Poor pre-conceptual care.
• Poor diet in pregnancy.
• Medicines, drugs, X-rays or the Pill.
• Infections during pregnancy.
• Alcohol in pregnancy.
• Smoking before conception and during pregnancy.
• Environmental hazards.
• Genetic problems.
• Poor ante-natal care.
• Birth problems.
• Congenital abnormalities.
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