Released 03/12/2020
A new program aiming to reduce the rate of late gestation stillbirth launched in the ACT today. The Safer Baby Bundle program provides maternity healthcare professionals with training, support and access to research to keep women and their babies safe through pregnancy.
ACT Health, Canberra Health Services and Calvary Public Hospital Bruce have partnered with the Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth (Stillbirth CRE) to deliver the Safer Baby Bundle to health professional across the ACT.
Minister for Health Rachel Stephen-Smith said research indicates that between 20 and 30 per cent of stillbirths may be prevented with better management and assessment of maternal risk factors.
"Tragically, six babies are stillborn every day in Australia, a rate that has changed little in two decades. We know every pregnancy is unique but there are women who have clear risk factors for still birth.
"The Safer Baby Bundle will help to identify these risks earlier and is designed to improve the care women and families receive.
"Informed by evidence-based research and a set of clinical recommendations, the Safer Baby Bundle aims to reduce the rate of stillbirth in Australia by 20 per cent by 2023. Achieving this target would mean many Canberra families each and every year will be spared the devastation of having a stillborn baby," said Minister Stephen-Smith.
Nurses, midwifes, GPs, obstetricians and other health professionals will have access to E-learning modules and resources focussing on five areas where research shows lives can be saved:
- Supporting women to stop smoking in pregnancy.
- Improving detection and management of fetal growth restriction.
- Raising awareness and improving care for women who have decreased fetal movements.
- Improving awareness of the recommendation that pregnant women go to sleep on their side, rather than their back, after 28 weeks.
- Improving shared decision-making about the timing of birth for women with risk factors for stillbirth.
Safer Baby Bundle holds its first Virtual Education Day today, for nurses, midwives, GPs, obstetricians, and other health professionals who provide care to pregnant women.
Stillbirth CRE Co-Director David Ellwood said it was wonderful to see the ACT's hospitals supporting this important, life-saving intervention.
"The Safer Baby Bundle initiative has been designed so clinicians, regardless of where they work, can have the latest, best-practice evidence at hand to keep more women and their babies safe during pregnancy," Professor Ellwood said.
Quote from Samantha Isfahani, mother of Evelyn Louise Isfahani who was stillborn on 16 November 2015 at 37 weeks:
"Stillbirth had become what I believed to be a neglected epidemic. There was a silence and stigma that surrounded it and a common misconception that it was inevitable. But we have come to know and learn that in many cases it is preventable.
"And that's what makes The Safer Baby Bundle so important and momentous. During my pregnancy with Evelyn, stillbirth and its associated risk factors were never communicated to me.
"It is so encouraging to know that with The Safer Baby Bundle and the work of other incredible collaborators that is going to change – and save so many precious little lives."
Quote attributable to Associate Professor Boon Lim, Chair, ACT Safer Baby Bundle Implementation Group, ACT:
"As a leading specialist provider, the Safer Baby Bundle program brings further evidence-based strategies into our clinical care in the ACT.
"Importantly, the program nurtures a partnership with clinicians and mothers-to-be as part of a comprehensive way to monitor and improve maternity care, based on information at hand during a pregnancy.
"Having access to the latest international research and advice, in an exceptionally easy-to-use system which in turn contributes to timely care, our clinicians will be champing at the bit to take on board and implement the resources to help prevent stillbirths in the ACT."
- Statement ends -
Rachel Stephen-Smith, MLA | Media Releases