News
12 Aug 2010: Please go to our new and updated site for the latest news.
6 July 2010: Nu-buntu TV, headed by Adin van Ryneveld, are planning to do a piece about Born Sleeping and to highlight the cause of infant loss. If you are willing to help out in some way, please get in contact with us. We're not sure exactly what that will entail yet, but as we learn more we'll keep you informed.
11 September 2009: In the UK, a baby born at 21 weeks was given no medical attention, and died after 2 hrs of breathing on his own, because of the UK guidelines saying no assistance is to be given to babies born before 23 weeks. As a result the mother is now fighting to have the guidelines changed. Read the Daily Mail report here.
August 2009: Life Hospitals give Born Sleeping the nod and will be referring patients to us. It will be up to individual hospitals though to push this initiative.
10 March 2009: The International Stillbirth Alliance conference for 2009 was held in the Drakensberg.
15 Jan 2009: UNICEF have released their latest report "State of the World's Children 2009" on mother and infant Loss. You can view the full report, or create your own statistical tables here. According to the report, women in the world’s least developed countries are 300 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications than women in developed countries. At the same time, a child born in a developing country is almost 14 times more likely to die during the first month of life than a child born in a developed one.
12 Oct 2008: A new treatment has been found for women suffering with APS, one of the primary causes of stillbirths. Read more here
4 Sep 2008: An Australian medical-engineering-pathology team is currently developing a computer programme that, if it works, will help to predict which women are likely to have a premature birth, so that they can be started on treatments that currently exist (and have been proven effective at preventing premature births). Since 70% of neo-natal deaths are caused by prematurity, this could dramatically reduce the number of children dying. Read more here.
29 August 2008: A new vaccine, Prevnar, is going to be added to the normal innoculation schedule for all babies in SA to reduce infant mortality from pneumonia. This is of particular benefit to HIV/ AIDS babies. It normally costs R1500. The programme will be rolled out in the Eastern Cape later this year, where HIV infection of babies is highest. The rest of the country will follow during 2009. Read more here.
17 March 2008 & 18 April 2008: South Africa is listed as one of a handful of countries internationally where the death rate for children under 5 is increasing (reported in Cape Argus)
31 March 2008: PE Herald: woman who has stillbirth wins lawsuit against hospital for negligence
28 Mar 2008: Vietnam's official statistics about neo-natal death are 4 per 1000 births, but recent research (using questionnaires and surveys) puts it at 16 per 1000. The reason for the discrepancy is that Vietnam, like many other countries (including SA & the UK) puts the onus on the grieving family to report the death, not the hospital. You can read the full story here
18th Feb 2008: Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institure has just been granted $1 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for research into prematurity and stillbirth. It is widely believed that there is a link between the causes of stillbirth and prematurity. Read the full news story.