Perinatal programme of work | MBRRACE-UK

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The perinatal programme of MBRRACE-UK is led by The Infant Mortality and Morbidity Studies (TIMMS) group at the University of Leicester. It conducts national surveillance of all eligible late fetal losses, stillbirths and neonatal deaths in the UK. It also conducts confidential enquiries on selected topics related to perinatal mortality and serious infant morbidity.

The findings of the perinatal programme are published in an annual Perinatal Mortality Surveillance “State of the Nation” report and a Perinatal Confidential Enquiry report published every two years.

The perinatal programme of work is comprised of two main areas

National surveillance of perinatal deaths

MBRRACE-UK conducts surveillance of all eligible perinatal deaths occurring in the UK.

Deaths eligible for reporting to MBRRACE-UK and inclusion in surveillance are:

Late fetal losses – the baby is born at 22 or 23 completed weeks' gestation showing no signs of life, irrespective of when the death occurred.
Stillbirths – the baby is born from 24 completed weeks' gestation (or from 400g where an accurate estimate of gestation is not available) showing no signs of life, irrespective of when the death occurred.
Neonatal deaths – the death of a live born baby born from 20 completed weeks' gestation (or from 400g where an accurate estimate of gestation is not available) occurring before 28 completed days after birth.

The eligibility criteria for notification to MBRRACE-UK is based on the baby's gestational age at birth. This means that babies born from 22 completed weeks' gestational age showing no signs of life must be reported to MBRRACE-UK regardless of when the death occurred.

Terminations of pregnancy resulting in a registered stillbirth (from 24 completed weeks' gestation) or neonatal death (from 20 completed weeks' gestation) should also be notified. We collect this limited information about terminations of pregnancy in order to exclude these cases from MBRRACE-UK reported statistics on perinatal mortality.

More information about how perinatal deaths are identified and data are collected can be found on the perinatal data collection page.

The most recent surveillance data can be viewed in the Perinatal Mortality Surveillance “State of the Nation” report.

Perinatal confidential enquiries

MBRRACE-UK conducts confidential enquiries of perinatal deaths and babies born with serious morbidities once every two years. The topics for each enquiry are selected by the MBRRACE-UK Independent Advisory Group based on their national relevance and potential impact of the findings.

More information about the topics chosen and the perinatal confidential enquiry process can be found on the perinatal confidential enquiry page.

Perinatal Mortality Review Tool

The information collected by MBRRACE-UK about the babies who die is also used by hospitals to improve their local care. Whenever a baby dies, hospitals carry out a review using the national Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT), which is linked to the reporting system used by MBRRACE-UK. The PMRT has been designed with user and parent involvement to support high quality standardised perinatal reviews on the principle of 'review once, review well'.