Most deaths of babies and brain injuries in childbirth are avoidable, says college

Three quarters of deaths of babies or injuries to their brain during childbirth could be avoided with better fetal monitoring and neonatal care, a report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has concluded.1

An investigative team conducted more than 2500 expert assessments of local reviews into the care of 1136 babies born in the UK in 2015, of whom 126 were stillborn, 156 died within the first seven days of birth, and 854 had severe brain injury.

A quarter of the local reports were branded inadequate as they were not thorough enough to allow a full assessment. The Each Baby Counts report, the findings of …