Media release from NZMA

The New Zealand Medical Association today welcomed the release of the Perinatal and Maternity Mortality Review Committee report.

"For the sake of women and babies in New Zealand, it is vital that we have a full understanding of our maternity services, and this will help greatly," said NZMA Maternity spokesman Dr Mark Peterson.

"Any death of a baby or mother is a tragedy, and some deaths are not always avoidable, but we can use this information to learn how to do things better."

While welcoming today's report, Dr Peterson said it was extremely disappointing that reliable statistics are only available from 2006, and that similar reporting was not carried out more than a decade ago.

"New Zealand's maternity system has undergone significant changes over the last 20 years, and there has been little monitoring of the effects of these changes, and inadequate data collection systems. Good statistics should have been kept from that time to track changes."

The NZMA strongly supports a more strategic approach towards addressing the issues facing maternity services, and has been advocating for this for many years.

"As part of this, the NZMA strongly believes that maternity care should be integrated into the Primary Health Organisation (PHO) environment, to ensure that continuity of medical care is available to women throughout their pregnancy, and that medical and midwifery services can be both coordinated and sustainable," Dr Peterson said.

Some of the report's recommendations, such as promoting guidelines for diabetes screening, smoking cessation and family violence screening can best be carried out in a better coordinated Primary Care setting.