Holles St sees major rise in baby deaths

THE National Maternity Hospital (NMH) at Holles Street in Dublin last year recorded the highest number of perinatal deaths for five years, according to its latest annual clinical report.

There was an overall perinatal mortality rate of 12.3 per 1,000 babies born in the hospital last year, compared to 9.9 per 1,000 in the previous year. And over a quarter of these deaths 27% occurred in non-national patients, according to the Master of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH), Dr Declan Keane.

Perinatal deaths occur in babies over 500 grams during pregnancy or in the first week after birth.

All three Dublin maternity hospitals are still experiencing a rise in the number of non-national births despite the recent Supreme Court ruling which makes it more difficult for parents of Irish-born babies to get citizenship here.

Non-nationals accounted for 18% of all deliveries at Holles Street last year and that figure is expected to rise to 20% this year. The three Dublin maternity hospitals envisaged that the number of these patients would continue to rise, Dr Keane told the Irish Medical News.

"This is occurring for many reasons. In some cases the traffickers have not informed women of the changes in the law," Dr Keane said.

"Other women still want to have their babies here because they will be entitled to free education and they hope there may be a change in the residency laws."

Out of 101 perinatal deaths in Holles Street last year, 23 occurred in patients who were unbooked/late bookers or were in-utero transfers, Dr Keane said.

"These were mainly non-nationals who arrived in the country late and wanted to have their children here despite changes in the residency laws."

Dr Keane said the number of deaths due to congenital abnormalities appeared to decrease last year but this was due more to a decrease in the autopsy rates rather than a true decrease in the number of malformations.

The organ retention controversy has prompted many parents to refuse permission for autopsies to be carried out on their babies.

"This is unfortunate because an autopsy is the only thing that will give an accurate reason for the cause of death and will allow doctors to advise parents properly on future pregnancies," Dr Keane said.

Another leading obstetrician also revealed yesterday that there had been a huge drop in the number of autopsies carried out on perinatal babies in University College Hospital Galway (UCHG) last year.

Only 43% of perinatal mortality cases allowed postmortems to be carried out compared to 80% the previous year, according to Professor John Morrisson of UCGH.

"This drop will have serious implications since postmortems were crucial to finding out the cause of death and a high proportion of still births were unexplained," he said.