News and Updates

2007

Maternal Mental Health Workshop - Date 29th October Wednesday
Keeping Women Healthy: Improving the maternal mental health care in New Zealand

We invite you to attend the one-day workshop “Keeping Mothers Healthy"

What's Happened to Baby? by skylight, Sids Wgtn & Sands Wgtn
What’s Happened to Baby? is an inviting, sensitively written and colourfully illustrated picture book for children 3 – 7 years old, who have had a baby die in their family/whānau. It has been designed with the whole family/whānau in mind, and provides a helpful opportunity for parents and caregivers to talk with a young child about this difficult loss. It also features useful notes and information for adults at the back, to assist them in supporting their bereaved child. The text has been carefully designed to fit a wide range of bereavement situations, including miscarriage, stillbirth, cot death, and accidental or natural deaths of an infant or toddler. In this way it has been developed as a book that will be able to serve and support a large number of bereaved New Zealand families. The story is simple, giving young readers clear understanding and reassuring, comforting concepts to carry with them. It also offers plenty of opportunities for adults to talk with their child/children about their own beliefs and any personal thoughts they would like to share. The illustrations, by Ali Teo, and the text combine to very effectively reflect the multi cultural nature of the New Zealand community today.
available from: www.skylight.org.nz

First Report to the Minister of Health: June 2005 to June 2007
This is the first report to the Minister of Health from this ministerial committee. PMMRC was established in 2005 to advise the minister on prevention of perinatal and maternal deaths. This report describes the setting up of the committee, the process developed to collect information about perinatal deaths and important realted issues such as post-mortems, parental support and issues for Māori.
View the First Report to the Minister of Health: June 2005 to June 2007
View the media release: First report from committee looking at deaths of mothers and babies (www.moh.govt.nz)

Fetal and Infant Deaths 2003 & 2004
Annual statistical publication that collates and analyses information on the causes of fetal and infant deaths registered in New Zealand.
View the Fetal and Infant Deaths 2003 & 2004 report on the New Zealand Health Information Service website.

Report on Maternity: Maternal and Newborn Information 2004 (Published July 2007)
This is the fifth in the series of annual data analysing New Zealand maternity services. It contains information on the outcomes, availability and utilisation of maternity services for women who gave birth in New Zealand in 2004. The report contains data from the Maternity and Newborn Information System (MNIS), the primary purpose of which is to provide information on maternity services. The MNIS currently contains extracts of hospital data from the National Minimum Dataset (NMDS) and data from payment claims submitted to HealthPAC. In New Zealand in 2004, 54,875 mothers gave birth and 55,213 babies were born in hospital
Read the Report on Maternity on the New Zealand Health Information Service website.

Mortality and Demographic Data (Published July 2007)
Annual statistical publication that collates and analyses information on the underlying causes of all deaths registered in New Zealand. The commentary summarises key facts, mortality rates, trends and major causes of death by age group, and sex.
View the Mortality and Demographic Data 2002 and 2003 report on the New Zealand Health Information Service website.

Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health: Improving the Health of Mothers, Babies an Children (CEMACH)
CEMACH is planning to hold a series of interactive workshops in the UK on the Maternal Death Enquiry following the launch of the 2003-05 Report in December 2007.
It is intended that these workshops will encourage participants to consider and plan ways in which they can translate findings and recommendations into practice within their area of influence. The Chair of the PMMRC will be attending one of the workshops.
Read the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health on the CEMACH website

International Stillbirth Alliance 3rd Annual Conference: Perinatal loss: Improving care and prevention
29 September -2 October 2007, Birmingham, UK. View the ISA website (www.isa2007.org) for further details.

State of the World’s Mothers 2007: Saving the Lives of Children Under Age 5 (May 2007)
In commemoration of Mother’s Day, Save the Children is publishing its eighth annual State of the World’s Mothers report (PDF 1.9 MB). The focus is on the 28,000 children under age 5 who die every day from easily preventable or treatable causes and the tragic fact that basic, lifesaving remedies still are not reaching millions of mothers and children in need.

Banner outside Parliament representing New Zealand's stillbirth numbers for 2003.

2006

Baby Loss Awareness Week (Dec 2006)
The Committee heard at its meeting on 31 October 2006 that on 9 October 2006, to mark the first day of Baby Loss Awareness Week, representatives of Stillbirth and Newborn Death Support (SANDS) pinned 596 pairs of bootees to a banner representing New Zealand's stillbirth numbers for 2003.

Information about the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee (Dec 2006)
An information sheet for health professionals and families about the work performed by the PMMRC.

Page last updated: 20 June 2008