A Literature Review: What are the challenges, and the facilitators for improving the quality of care given to mothers and babies during labour and birth to reduce the number of intrapartum stillbirths and intrapartum-related neonatal deaths?

Abstract

Patient safety is at the forefront of any healthcare system agenda. Stillbirths and neonatal deaths are a global health burden and a tragedy for mothers and their family. Worldwide, an estimated 2.6 million stillbirths and 2.7 million neonatal deaths occur annually, indicating that global initiatives to accelerate progress towards the prevention of these tragedies are needed. While high-income countries’ stillbirth rates and neonatal death rates are comparatively low compared with lower- middle-income countries, the United Kingdom (England) continues to have the highest rates among high-income countries and have slow progress rates in neonatal mortality. Efforts have been made to improve the quality of obstetric services, to prevent such tragedies. Evidence has indicated that women are not receiving an optimal level of care and the rate of intrapartum stillbirths and neonatal-related deaths continues to be unacceptable, even accounting for the small proportion of perinatal deaths. For this reason, the focus of this work is to determine and explore the contributory barriers faced by maternity care teams, as well as the facilitators that will help end this tragedy and reduce the number of deaths.