World Prematurity Day

Neil Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) and congratulate him on securing the debate. I am delighted to make a small contribution on behalf of the Scottish National party.

The hon. Gentleman started by saying that the House does not give enough attention to this issue, so again I pay tribute to him for securing the debate and for his dedication to this issue over a number of years. He delivered an excellent speech, citing examples and stories to highlight the issue. I was incredibly touched by his personal example from Catherine and Nigel. I put on record my sympathy for the loss of Luke—what an incredibly touching and harrowing story. As a father, I find it impossible to comprehend how difficult that time must be, not only for Catherine and Nigel, or for any of the other parents we have heard about today, but for all those who have experienced pre-term birth, whether or not their child has survived. It is an incredibly traumatising time for all those parents.

The hon. Gentleman said that if we were to match the pre-term survival rate of Sweden, we would save 1,000 babies a year in the UK, which would save 1,000 families from tragedy, so I hope the Minister will look at that. I absolutely agree that we must ensure that stillbirths and pre-term babies are as few as possible and that parents are properly supported. On one of his visits to his local hospital, the hon. Gentleman learned that three babies had passed away the night before. We cannot imagine the pain felt by the families, but as he said, we must also recognise and pay tribute to the work of our NHS staff, who will share that pain and trauma. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to those staff, who do an incredible job for all of us. I sincerely congratulate the hon. Gentleman on doing a great service to his constituents and friends.

The hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), in another good speech, cited the excellent unit at Croydon university hospital, which he visited with Bliss. He said that the families were delighted to receive excellent NHS support but were also terrified and traumatised by not being able to hold their babies—babies who had survived but required extra help—because they were so fragile. When a child is suffering, it is the most natural maternal and paternal thing for their parents to want to hold them. The difficulty experienced by those parents cannot be comprehended, and we must ensure that the necessary emotional and practical help and support is in place. The hon. Gentleman gave the example of the family of an 11-week pre-term baby being forced into debt, which is an absolute tragedy that must be sorted out. I hope the Minister will touch on that in his contribution.

The hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) brought her personal experiences to the debate in a very touching way. She cited some excellent but harrowing statistics that are difficult for us to understand. Some 40% of mothers of children born pre-term experience mental health problems, compared with 5% to 10% of mothers of children born at full term. That takes us back to the support required by parents of premature babies. It is absolutely right that extra support should be available for all parents if their baby passes away, but we must also consider the support that is available to parents whose children survive. She also mentioned the link between pre-term babies and cerebral palsy, which my family has experienced. She is right to draw attention to that, because it needs wider consideration. I thank her for her contribution.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a typically reasoned and measured contribution, touching on the long-term health problems to which surviving pre-term babies are susceptible. That point was in tune with many of the other contributions made today. He mentioned one statistic that startled me: three quarters of the 1 million babies around the world who, tragically, die after pre-term birth could have survived with adequate care and support. We must address that not just here in the UK but internationally. Surely we could consider it in our aid budget.

My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) made a passionate personal plea to the Minister in an intervention, and I hope that the Minister will respond. Finally, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) also brought his personal experience to the debate in a touching manner; he made a great speech. He is absolutely right: it is a national scandal that we have one of the worst pre-term mortality rates in the western world. He reminded us that when we talk about that mortality, we are talking about babies. Hopefully that brings the issue home to all of us. He also recognised the difficulties experienced by employees, and the fact that employers must take better cognisance of the fact that their employees in that situation will need extra support. I hope that the Minister will take note of that too, and refer back to it when he sums up.

The World Health Organisation promotes World Prematurity Day to raise awareness of the one in 10 babies worldwide who are born prematurely—that is, before the 37th week of pregnancy. It is the leading cause of death in newborn babies and the second most common cause of death in children under five. According to Bliss, a charity that supports families with premature babies and helps raise funds for adequate hospital equipment, 15 million babies worldwide are born prematurely every year, or 29 every minute, and 1 million of those will not survive. In the UK, 60,000 babies are born prematurely every year, which is one in 13.

A motion has been lodged in the Scottish Parliament commemorating world prematurity day and congratulating Sarah Brown on launching a new £1.5 million study on improving educational outcomes and life chances for premature babies. The study is called the Theirworld Edinburgh birth cohort. It was launched last week at the University of Edinburgh, and it will involve researchers at the university following 400 newborns from birth to adulthood, collecting biological samples and brain scans as well as information about socioeconomic status and educational attainment. There is a lot of work going on in Scotland at the moment that I would have loved to mention if there had been slightly more time.

From a local perspective, my constituency is served by the maternity and neonatal unit at Wishaw general hospital. In 2013, there were 5,988 births, 426 of them premature. Some 13% of those premature babies were born weighing less than 1,500 grams. Wishaw general hospital has had its problems in the past, but I am proud to say that NHS Lanarkshire is the only health board in Scotland to have received nominations for the Royal College of Midwives’ annual midwifery awards, which are coming up in March. My local health board has been shortlisted in two categories: the better births award, for which Maureen McSherry and Carole Burns have been nominated for their post-delivery debriefing, and the Pregnacare award for maternity support worker of the year, for which my constituent Leigh-Ann Johnstone from Airdrie has been nominated.

Earlier this year, NHS Lanarkshire implemented Scotland’s first heart rate observation system. Equipment has been installed in Wishaw general hospital to monitor the heart rate of premature and sick babies. It provides early warning of irregularities and can indicate the development of infection, a leading cause of death in vulnerable babies. I again pay tribute to the hon. Member for Daventry for securing this debate, and I thank everyone for their contributions.