Preventing up to 200 tragic stillbirths each year is the goal of the new Australian Safer Baby Bundle educational resources being launched in Canberra today, which is also International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
Healthcare professionals right across the country will now have access to a new package of clinical guidelines, position statements and practical tools to help address Australia’s rate of preventable stillbirths, which have not changed over the last 20 years.
Executive Director CEQ’s Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Service Kirstine Sketcher-Baker said the Safer Baby Bundle eLearning resources were designed to reduce the rate of preventable stillbirth from 28 weeks’ gestation by 20 per cent over the next three years.
‘The Safer Baby Bundle eLearning resources have been designed by the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence in collaboration with maternity professionals and bereaved parents across Australia.’
Image courtesy of Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence
The five components of the Safer Baby Bundle are:
- Supporting women to stop smoking in pregnancy
- Improving detection and management of fetal growth restriction
- Raising awareness and improving care for women with decreased fetal movements
- Improving awareness of maternal safe going-to-sleep position in late pregnancy
- Improving decision-making about the timing of birth for women with risk factors for stillbirth.
Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence Co-director David Ellwood said: “Urgent action is needed to address these gaps between what is known and what is done in maternity care in Australia.”
Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales will also dedicate the next 18 months working collaboratively to do just that.
Similar to Queensland’s sepsis collaborative, the partnership will use improvement methodology to embed the behavioural changes required at the local level to implement the bundle effectively. For more information, email saferbabybundle@health.qld.gov.au.
Visit the Stillbirth CRE website to access the eLearning resources.
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