“It is imperative to rethink and reorganize our perinatal care system”

Our maternities are on the verge of rupture and it is for this reason that we, gynecologists-obstetricians, neonatologists, anesthetists-resuscitators, midwives, childcare workers, psychiatrists, psychologists and users, launch an appeal to government as to all French people. We must collectively realize that it is imperative to rethink and reorganize our perinatal care system, because, today, all the indicators are red.

The infant mortality rate, an essential marker of medical and social progress, has been up since 2012 after dropping for more than two centuries . France is at 25 e rank European, while it was in 2 ^e position twenty years ago. If we had kept our level of excellence, a thousand two hundred deaths of children could be avoided each year.

Furthermore, the death rate (fetal deaths after six months of pregnancy) also places our country at the tail of the peloton, at 20 e European rank . The High Authority for Health believes that More than 50 % of the serious incidents with which mothers and children in the delivery room are avoidable .

alarming indicators

Finally, the authors of the last Confidential national survey on maternal dead judge that 70 % of deaths related to pregnancy, childbirth or their consequences were “avoidable “or” perhaps avoidable “over the period studied (2013-2015).

When we know the situation of maternities, how not to make the link between these alarming indicators and the deterioration of working conditions? Recent surveys have shown that burn-out touched 50 % to 75 % of gynecologists-obstetricians , 65.7%of the midwives frames and that 49 % of neonatologists’ pediatricians suffered from sleep disorders linked to their activity.

Most of the maternity and neonatology services work more than 50 hours per week, almost half are at least five 24 -hour guards per month. Consequences: experienced professionals leave the hospital, abandoning care but also research and training (essential in the future of perinatal medicine), and young people desert perinatal.

According to the last e Périnatal native (ENP 2021) , the proportion of maternities which must call on temporary workers or temporary workers several times a month is 28.1 % regarding gynecologists-obstetricians, 32.2 % for anesthetists-resuscitators and 28 % for midwives.

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