I'm sitting here with my purple mug of long cold tea, trying to get into words what the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) is and how MBRRACE works.
That's a lot of Mums who got to see their kids grow up, thanks to lessons learned.
This is the bit students find confusing, it's kind of like one of those magic tricks with the three cups and the ball but the reports go like this:
2014 (covers deaths from 2009-2012): Topic cycle A which covers sepsis, haemorrhage, amniotic fluid embolism and more
2015 (covers deaths from 2011-2013): Topic cycle B which covers psychiatric causes, thrombosis, homicide and more
2016: (covers deaths from 2012-2014): Topic cycle C which covers deaths from cardiac causes, deaths from pre-eclampsia, and more
2017: (covers deaths from 2013-2015): Back to Topic Cycle A again, i.e. sepsis, haemorrhage, amniotic fluid embolism and more
It's like if a TV show covered the whole week's news but did it in three different themed episodes spaced out across 7 days.
There'd be a bit of a delay while the episode got made, but every day and every topic would eventually get covered.
And then there's there are the stats around mortality and race.
If you're an Asian mother, you have a 3x increased risk of dying during childbearing; if you're black you have a 5x increased risk.
“When I talk about white privilege, I don’t mean that white people have it easy, that they’ve never struggled, or that they’ve never lived in poverty. But white privilege is the fact that if you’re white, your race will almost certainly positively impact your life’s trajectory in some way. And you probably won’t even notice it.”
- Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this.
Leave me a comment, what's your key takeaway from MBRRACE 2019?
I'd recommend a hot cup of tea to help the learning!