COVID-19 Wider Impacts - Gestation at Delivery Edit

Care for women and babies around the time they are giving birth/being born is an essential, time critical service that cannot be deferred. As such, it has been provided throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and maternity and neonatal staff have not been redeployed to support other services. The way that some elements of this care are provided has changed in response to COVID-19 however, to minimise the risk of infection and to allow services to continue to provide safe care during times when a high number of staff may be off work, for example due to needing to isolate. Relevant guidance has been issued by the Scottish Government, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the British Association for Perinatal Medicine.\r\n\r\n\u2018Gestation at delivery\u2019 refers to the number of completed weeks pregnant a woman is when she delivers her baby. Babies are \u2018due\u2019 at 40 completed weeks gestation. Those born between 37 and 41 weeks inclusive are considered to be born \u2018at term\u2019. Babies born at under 37 weeks (more than three weeks before their due date) are considered preterm or premature, with those born at under 32 weeks considered very preterm and those born at 32 to 36 weeks inclusive considered moderately preterm. Babies born at or over 42 weeks (more than two weeks after their due date) are considered post-term or over-due. Babies born preterm are at increased risk of both short and long term health and developmental problems, with the risk increasing the earlier a baby is born. Babies are also at increased risk when pregnancies extend post-term, in particular the risk of stillbirth increases from 42 weeks gestation onwards.\r\n\r\nThis dataset presents information on gestation at delivery. Data is shown at Scotland and NHS Board level, as well as broken down by age group and deprivation. \r\n\r\nThis data is also available on the COVID-19 Wider Impact Dashboard. Additional data sources relating to this topic area are provided in the Links section of the Metadata below. Further information based on SMR02 data is also available from the annual Births in Scottish Hospitals report. Information on COVID-19, including stay at home advice for people who are self-isolating and their households, can be found on NHS Inform.\r\n\r\nAll publications and supporting material to this topic area can be found in the weekly COVID-19 Statistical Report. The date of the next release can be found on our list of forthcoming publications.

Resources

• Gestation Data by Health Board CSV (Details)
• Gestation Data by Age CSV (Details)
• Gestation Data by Deprivation CSV (Details)

Additional Info