International experts meet in Seattle to tackle stillbirth and deaths due to prematurity

More than 200 health experts from around the world are meeting this weekend in Seattle to tackle the global problem of stillbirth and infant death due to prematurity.

Every year there are more than 3 million stillbirths and another 1 million infant deaths due to complications of premature birth worldwide, said Dr. Craig Rubens, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and one of the conference organizers.

Stillbirth and prematurity are responsible for more deaths of children under age 5 than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, Dr. Craig Rubens said, yet “despite the magnitude of the problem, prematurity and stillbirth have received remarkably little attention.”

Over the course of the four-day meeting, which runs through Sunday, attendees plan to:

• Identify the interventions that have been shown to be effective in reducing stillbirths and prematurity
• Draw up a “roadmap” that can guide future research and help to rally support for efforts to reduce the number of these deaths worldwide
• Develop funding strategies to support these initiatives

Ongoing and archived sessions of the conference can be viewed online.

The conference was organized by the Seattle-based Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth (GAPPS), an initiative launched by Seattle Children’s in 2007.

The conference is also supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, March of Dimes, PATH, Save the Children, UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

In addition to convening this week’s conference, GAPPS is creating a repository of data about stillbirth and prematurity and a specimen bank that scientists from around the world can use to conduct research. GAPPS is also spearheading an advocacy campaign to rally support for the cause.

Little known about causes

Surprisingly little is known about the causes of stillbirth and prematurity, said Dr. Rubens, who is the co-founder and executive director of GAPPS.

“I can’t tell you why women deliver at 40 works or 9 months,” he said in an interview. “We don’t understand the biology, genetics, pathophysiology.”

To understand why a pregnancy “goes awry, we really need to understand what a normal pregnancy is all about,” Dr. Rubens said.

At the same time, many interventions that are known to reduce stillbirth and deaths due to prematurity are not implemented, experts at the conference said, particularly in the developing world where poverty, malnutrition and lack of access to healthcare drive up fetal, newborn and maternal death rates.

Healthcare systems in the developing world need to be built up so that women can get prenatal care and assistance during and after delivery, said Dr. Vinod Paul, chair of pediatrics at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India.

In addition to conducting research to develop new ways to prevent stillbirth and prematurity, it is important “to bring up to scale interventions that have been shown to work,” Dr. Paul said.

Need for advocacy

More people need to speak out about this problem, Dr Mahmoud Fathalla, emeritus professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Assiut Univeristy, Egypt, told conference attendees at the meeting’s opening session.

The problem of stillbirth and deaths due to prematurity is ignored, he said, because “dead babies don’t cry.”

“This is issue needs advocacy,” he said, “it needs advocates.”

To learn more:

• View the Webcast of the International Conference on Prematurity & Stillbirth.
• Visit the GAPPS Website.
• Read the articles in the supplement Stillbirths – the global picture and evidence-based solutions published online and open-access by the BioMedCentral journal Pregnancy and Childbirth.

Tags: Babies, GAPPS, Gates Foundation, Global Health, Infants, Newborns, Obstetrics, Pediatrics, Prematurity, Premies, Seattle, Seattle Children's, Stillbirth, University of Washington

Category: Global Health Seattle, Newborn and Infant Health, Seattle Children's, University of Washington, Women's Health