Medical care for pregnant women must be improved so that avoidable baby deaths are halved in the coming five years, says a confidential report to be presented to the government next week, reports Wednesday’s Volkskrant.

At present one in a hundred babies in the Netherlands dies just before, during or after childbirth making, the paper says. This is the third highest in Europe, after France and Latvia.
Between 10 and 15 mothers die from complications during childbirth in Holland every year, according to the Volkskrant.
The report, commissioned by the government two years ago, calls for hospitals to have gynaecologists, paediatricians and operating staff available 24 hours a day, seven days a week so that emergency situations are dealt with within 15 minutes.
The steering committee which has compiled the report is headed by Koos van der Velden, professor of public health at St Raboud university hospital in Nijmegen and includes medical experts.
24-hour medical care
The committee wants 24-hour medical care for pregnant women to be in place throughout the country by 2012. At present this is only the case in a handful of hospitals, reports the paper.
The report also calls for a midwife or nurse to remain with a pregnant woman once labour has started and a ‘case manager’ to coordinate medical care. One of the causes of babies dying at birth is miscommunication and misunderstanding between midwives and doctors, says the Volkskrant.
Pregnant women should also undergo a risk assessment in the 34th week of pregnancy, says the report advises.
How much these measures will cost is not know but is ecpected to run into several hundreds of millions of euros, according to the Volkskrant.