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The Netherlands is among the countries with the highest baby mortality rate in Europe according to EURO-PERISTAT-II, a major European comparative study of the health of mothers and babies in 25 EU countries and Norway. In the Netherlands one in every hundred babies dies during pregnancy or immediately after birth, putting our country third behind France and Latvia. The European results are presented today. The Dutch figures are being published on Saturday 13 December in the Dutch Journal for Health.
TNO has been working with the French-based INSERM to compare the mortality rates for babies dying during pregnancy or immediately after birth for 2004 in 26 European countries. The previous PERISTAT study relates to 1999 when the Netherlands had the highest baby mortality rate in 15 EU countries. This represents a decrease for the Netherlands for baby mortality at or around the time of birth but the same can be said of the other countries.
The Dutch figures derive from the Stichting Perinatale Registratie Nederland (foundation for perinatal registration in the Netherlands), which unites the professional organisations for obstetricians (KNOV), gynaecologists (NVOG), paediatricians (NVK) and general practitioners (LHV).
In the Netherlands one in every hundred babies dies during pregnancy or immediately after birth. Only France and Latvia have higher rates – eleven in every hundred. With just five mortalities per thousand births, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Spain are the best of all European countries. The Netherlands has relatively high mortality rates both during pregnancy, at birth and post-birth, although death in the second to fourth week after birth is relatively low.
It is still not sufficiently clear why our country lags behind the rest of Europe. The Netherlands has relatively many older mothers and multiple births. The Netherlands had relatively little prenatal screening for hereditary defects in 2004. Dutch paediatricians are reluctant to treat extremely premature babies. The result is that these babies are more likely to die after birth than in other countries. These factors cannot, however, adequately explain the whole difference. The PERISTAT figures do not indicate whether this can be attributed to the high percentage of ethnic pregnancies in the Netherlands compared to other countries or whether that is in part an explanation.
According to the Dutch PERISTAT steering group it is vital to find out more about the causes of the relatively high mortality rate in the Netherlands and the possibilities to reduce this. Closer analyses of the differences in the mortality rate of babies among European countries could be a first step in that direction. Only if we know much more about the root of the problem in the Netherlands can we effectively improve the (preventive) care for expectant mothers and newborn babies.
