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The report provides detailed analysis of data on mortality in children and young people in Ireland from 2019 to 2023, with a focus on 2022 and 2023 data.
The report’s authors said the data highlights the need for “timely and reliable data that will inform policy aimed at addressing the number of deaths, a large proportion of which are preventable”.
Between 2022 and 2023, there were a total of 612 deaths among people aged 18 and under in Ireland.
Some 363 of these deaths were among infants under one year, with 272 among newborns under 28 days old.
Ireland’s infant mortality rate – the number of deaths in children aged under 1 year in a given period per 1,000 live births in that same period – was 3.2 in the 2022-2023 period.
The overall infant mortality rate in Ireland has not declined since 2019 and is higher than many other European countries and no longer below the EU average rate of 3.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.
This is despite a decline in the rate of deaths from leading causes of infant death such as genetic disorders and diseases of the nervous system.
Professor Michael Barrett, chair of the NPMR Governance Committee, said that among ‘neonates’, the term given to a newborn aged under 28 days, “the causes of death were perinatal conditions, perhaps chromosomal abnormalities and so on”.
Perinatal conditions arise during the perinatal period, which spans from 22 completed weeks of gestation and ends seven completed days after birth.
“They’re overwhelmingly the vast majority of infants under one who pass away,” Barrett told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
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Barrett added that “later in that first year of life, we discover that there are other causes, and one of the more alarming causes is a slight increase in sudden infant death syndrome.”
The number and rate of registered deaths that were certified as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was higher in 2022–2023 (0.35 per 1,000 livebirths) than it was in 2019–2021 (0.24 per 1,000 livebirths).
Elsewhere, trauma accounted for one in five deaths in children aged 1–14 years, and half of deaths in young people aged 15–18 years during 2019–2023.
Some 27% of all trauma deaths in children aged 1-14 years and 14% of trauma deaths in older children 15-18 years were due to road traffic collisions.
However, the proportion of road traffic collision deaths registered has declined from 10 to 3.6 deaths per year among children aged 1-14 years, and from 9.4 to 3.4 deaths per year of children aged 15-18 years.
Meanwhile, among older children aged 15-18 years, suspected self-harm remains the leading cause of trauma deaths, making up over half of trauma deaths (54%) and 28% of all registered deaths in this age group during the 2019–2023 period.
Barrett said it is “alarming” that over half of deaths among 15-18 year olds are due to what is believed to be self-harm.
He noted that the NPMR doesn’t use the term death by suicide “because the obligation on the coroner is beyond reasonable doubt to make that determination in this jurisdiction”.
Elsewhere, cancer accounted for 25% of deaths in children aged 1–14 years and is the second leading cause of death among 15–18-year-olds, accounting for 16% of deaths in this age group during the 2019-2023 period.
Barrett remarked that “we often look are the opportunity for preventable causes to be identified”.
Following the publication of the report, its authors have called for a centralised electronic data collection system to be implemented for timely and accurate reporting of child mortality.
They have also called for enhanced suicide prevention efforts through collaboration with the HSE’s National Office of Suicide Prevention.
The report was published by the National Office of Clinical Audit (NOCA), and a further recommendation is that NOCA should support the HSE in its investigation of sudden infant death syndrome cases to identify high-risk groups and implement targeted prevention strategies.
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