Finleys Footprints

This page contains links, and summaries of news reports concerning issues of pregnancy, child and baby loss subjects.

18.01.12

The Mirror – Tackling UK’s Stillbirth Rate. In 2010, 4,110 babies were stillborn, another 1,850 babies died in the first hours or days of life and a further 507 died aged between one and four weeks.

Sands’ report said: “Stillbirth is where cot death was 30 years ago – there is still so much to be done.” The figure is 10 times the toll of cot deaths and more than the number of people killed on the roads. Common causes of stillbirth include birth defects, maternal medical problems and infections – however, a third of cases cannot be explained.

10.01.12

New York Times - In two new studies  researchers have pinpointed the most common causes of stillbirths and have found that known risk factors explain just a small minority of cases.

31.12.11

The Detail reports on the replies from the Department of Health about Northern Ireland’s stillbirth rates. In a further article The Failure to Find Out Why it shares an informative film. In a third story Siobhan Desmond shares the story of Axel her son. He was stillborn and for 10 years she has battled to get the lessons learned. She successfully settled out of court, however his death has still not been investigated to her satisfaction – because it is not investigated unless the baby is alive.

21.12.11

Donna Kelly Spends 10 weeks, 24 hours a day in tilted bed to avoid miscarriage. - A mother who had suffered 2 miscarriages, thought to be due to damage to her cervix from an earlier natural birth spent 10 weeks on a tilted bed in hospital when she was told she was at risk of losing this baby as well. Her waters broke six weeks early and her healthy baby was born by cesarean.

08.12.11

Stillbirth breaks father’s hearts too    Simon Buckley speaks with agonising clarity about his experience of the stillbirth of his daughter Fifi.

13.04.11

The UK has one of the worst still birth rates in the developed world -

“Each year in excess of 4,000 British babies are stillborn, the equivalent of 11 a day, according to national statistics.

The figure, 10 times the toll of cot deaths and more than the number of people killed on the roads, has remained largely unchanged in a decade. It also masks big postcode differences. For a woman in the Midlands, the chances of having a stillborn child are a third greater than they would be if she lived in the south-west.”

The Lancet produces stillbirth series – international research exploring issues within stillbirth.

RESPONSES TO THE LANCET SERIES

15.04.2011

Why Should Stillbirths Matter More? An article written by Frederik Frøen – a medical doctor and perinatal epidemiologist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. He writes of the need to bring stillbirth into the open, and of the power of the parents voices. He speaks of the fact that health professionals, as they learn more are realising that there are preventable factors in many cases.

15.04.2011

Stillbirths: Time to Count This Daily Reality. An interesting read highlighting the shocking numbers of stillbirths that occur in low and middle income countries.

12.07.2010

Parents of Stillborn Babies face indignity – Article summarizing the findings of a research study done into hospitals practices surrounding baby loss.