(HORIZON) December 19, 2017 - Variability in perinatal care across the province is among the findings in PerinatalNB's "Report of Indicators 2011-2016". The provincial program's first ever report includes indicators on maternal health, labour and delivery outcomes, and newborn health in New Brunswick.

"We are very pleased to publish our first report which provides information to move forward as a province to continue to strive to deliver evidenced-based, high-quality care to mothers, babies and families in New Brunswick," stated Dr. Lynn Murphy-Kaulbeck, Medical Director of PerinatalNB. "As a provincial program, we look forward to further collaboration with stakeholders."

The report's findings will help coordinate efforts to provide the best care possible to expectant mothers and babies in the province. While some results are comparable to the national rates, other results show differences between areas to be further explored. The following are a few highlights:

• In 2015-2016, there were 6,534 babies born in New Brunswick, of these 7.4% were born prematurely.
• 29.2% of the babies born in 2015-2016 were admitted to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or Special Care Unit (SCU), although this rate varied across the province from 16.3% to 53.7%.
• The caesarean section rate for the province was 28.1% in 2015-2016, this is comparable to the national rate.

"This report is an important milestone for PerinatalNB and we hope it will assist decision makers and health care providers in identifying practices and processes that would benefit from improvement and help them build on the strength of each other," said Gaetane LeBlanc Cormier, Program Director of the NB Perinatal Health Program.

PerinatalNB aspires to fuel quality planning and quality improvement initiatives with this report. These derived activities will contribute to the Program's vision to strive for optimal perinatal health outcomes across the continuum of care for expectant mothers and babies in New Brunswick.

PerinatalNB was created in 2014 to address New Brunswick's need for a centralized and coordinated approach to better perinatal health. It is a formal partnership of Horizon Health Network, Vitalité Health Network and the Province of New Brunswick Department of Health. The full report can be viewed by clicking on this link and by visiting www.PerinatalNB.ca.

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For more information contact:

Stephanie Neilson-Levesque
Media Relations
1-877-499-1899
Media@HorizonNB.ca
www.HorizonNB.ca