November 22, 2023On Friday, 17 November, Northern Health acknowledged World Prematurity Day, reasserting our commitment to safely prevent preterm and early term birth and its far-reaching impacts.
A staggering one in 12 babies in Australia is born premature; for Aboriginal babies, this rate is almost double at 15 per cent. In Australia, more than 26,000 babies are born preterm each year and more than 13.4 million globally. In 2020, preterm birth was responsible for more than one million deaths worldwide.
Northern Health is a key part of the Every Week Counts National Preterm Birth Prevention Collaborative – a national program which aims to safely reduce preterm and early term birth across Australia by 20 per cent through supporting hospitals in the adoption of evidence-based changes in clinical care.
Those born at the earliest gestational ages may suffer from severe and life-long problems such as cerebral palsy, developmental delay or blindness. For those born at a later gestation, even approaching full-term, there may be behavioural and learning problems.
This Commonwealth-funded national program involves obstetricians, midwives, GPs, sonographers, neonatologists together with consumers and quality improvement experts from more than 63 Australian maternity hospitals.
These hospital teams, representing every state and territory, range from the very largest tertiary services to key services in regional and remote communities providing local care.
During the Collaborative, Northern Health has been supported to accelerate its learning and develop reliable systems to ensure all women are offered the care and public health information that is known to reduce early birth. Key system improvements made at Northern Health include:
- Creating staff and consumer awareness of the importance of ‘Every Weeks Counts’ through survey’s, staff in services and emails.
- Improving our processes and reasons for booking women for early term induction of labour and caesarean sections.
- Staff and consumer awareness surrounding the importance of monitoring and escalating cervical lengths between 16 and 24 weeks gestation.
To mark World Prematurity Day 2023, Northern Health hosted a stall in the main hospital foyer, providing information about the impacts on babies and families when preterm and early term birth occurs and how our organisation can continue to improve our preterm and early term birth rates.
