The Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) programme aims to support maternity services to reduce risks of avoidable harm during intrapartum care. Kirstin Webster, Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (ANNP) and Neonatal Clinical Fellow, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Jan van der Scheer, Senior Research Associate, The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute), University of Cambridge explain the programme and invite participants to complete a survey to improve collection and use of routinely collected data on avoidable brain injury around the time of birth. Take part before February 23: https://ths.im/4iLI7kY
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What is brain injury around the time of birth?
Brain injuries around the time of birth – ranging from hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) through to stroke and central nervous system infection – can have devastating consequences for babies and their families. They also pose significant lifetime costs for health and care services of the NHS. Although improvements have been made, more is needed to meet the national ambition to halve the annual rates of stillbirth, neonatal death, and brain injuries around the time of birth by 2025. Especially HIE – a brain injury related to a series of fetal and neonatal insults around the time of birth – may be avoidable under conditions of optimal perinatal care.
What is the Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) programme?
The Avoiding Brain Injury in Childbirth (ABC) programme aims to support maternity services to improve and personalise care in labour to reduce risks of avoidable harm. Funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, the ABC programme is led by a collaboration of the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute at the University of Cambridge. The ABC programme brings together clinical expertise, lived experiences, and the best possible scientific evidence to co-design national clinical protocols, innovative tools and a safety culture toolkit to address two significant contributors to avoidable brain injury in childbirth:
- the detection and response to suspected fetal deterioration during labour
- the management of impacted fetal head at caesarean birth, where the baby’s head is deeply lodged in the mother’s pelvis and additional manoeuvres by the maternity team are required
Why do we need to improve data on avoidable brain injury around the time of birth?
High quality data is needed to understand how and why injuries like HIE happen, and what could be done to prevent them. Collecting data during clinical practice is important to improving services, but it can be difficult to record clearly and accurately. As part of the ABC programme, a group of clinicians and researchers undertook a review of data dictionaries of maternity and neonatal datasets. They also consulted a multi-professional group how to improve the use of data to reduce the risk of brain injuries around the time of birth. This review and consultation will be published soon in Pediatric Research. It showed that even though data on maternity and neonatal care are routinely collected in the UK, it’s been difficult to integrate information from various datasets. It has also been difficult to consistently record data, to make sure the information that’s important to families is included, and that the data are used in the best way to drive improvements.
Why is it important to take part in this survey on improving data on avoidable brain injury?
Now that we better understand the problems with data on avoidable brain injury around the time of birth, we can start working on solutions to improve collection and use of relevant data. The views of healthcare professionals, families and other specialists are much needed for that. That’s why the ABC Collaboration has just launched a new survey for all maternity and neonatal professionals, including midwives, obstetricians, maternity support workers, neonatal nurses, neonatologists/paediatricians, allied health professionals, and nursery nurses. This survey offers an important opportunity to help shape how data on avoidable brain injury is captured and used, so that we can better understand risk factors for injury and find the best possible strategies to reduce rates of avoidable brain injury around the time of birth.
Further information
Got questions? Please get in touch with: [email protected]. If you’d like to find out more about the ABC programme, join the ABC Network Community on the Thiscovery platform to get the latest programme updates: https://community.thiscovery.org/
Take part in the survey before February 23: https://ths.im/4iLI7kY
Kirstin Webster, Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (ANNP), Neonatal Clinical Fellow, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Jan van der Scheer, PhD, Senior Research Associate, The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute (THIS Institute), University of Cambridge
January 2025
