Deaths of newborn babies
Published
- 1. Navigate toMain facts and figures section
- 2. Navigate toThings you need to know section
- 3. Navigate to By mother's ethnicity section
- 4. Navigate to By mother’s ethnicity and cause of death section
- 5. Navigate to By mother’s ethnicity and place of birth, and cause of death section
- 6. Navigate toData sources section
- 7. Navigate toDownload the data section
1. Main facts and figures
- between 2009 and 2019, mothers in the Pakistani ethnic group had the highest average rate of deaths of newborn babies (babies under 28 days old), at 7.8 deaths per 1,000 live births
- in every ethnic group, over 70% of newborn deaths were from congenital anomalies or immaturity-related conditions, such as respiratory and cardiovascular disorders
- in most ethnic groups, mothers born outside the UK had a higher percentage of newborn deaths from congenital anomalies than mothers born in the UK
- in most ethnic groups where data was available, mothers born outside the UK had a lower percentage of newborn deaths from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) than mothers born in the UK
Further research
MBRRACE-UK published 2 confidential enquiries comparing the standard of care received by Black women and Asian women with that received by White women. The reports state that high quality care was found in a minority of the baby deaths which were reviewed, regardless of ethnicity, and that many deaths may have been prevented with better care. In particular however, Black women and Asian women were less likely to be offered a test for gestational diabetes or to be offered a high dose of vitamin D.
Get advice
If you have been affected by this topic, these organisations have helplines and support teams you can contact and information and resources you can use:
- Tommy’s provides expert, midwife-led advice for parents before, during and after pregnancy
- Bliss supports families whose baby is born sick or too soon
- Sands is a charity working to save babies’ lives and support bereaved families
- Willow’s Rainbow Box supports women and families experiencing pregnancy following baby loss
2. Things you need to know
What the data measures
The data measures the rate of deaths among babies under 28 days old (‘newborns’). This is also referred to as the ‘neonatal mortality rate’.
The causes of death included in the data are:
- antepartum infection – infections that occur before birth
- asphyxia, anoxia or trauma – lack of oxygen during or shortly after labour
- congenital anomalies - caused by problems during the foetus's development before birth
- external conditions
- immaturity-related conditions – including respiratory and cardiovascular disorders
- infections
- sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
- other specific conditions
- other conditions
Annex B.2 (PDF opens in a new window or tab) provides full alignment with ICD-10 codes.
Rates are rounded to 1 decimal place. Percentages are rounded to whole numbers.
Not included in the data
The data does not include records that could not be linked across all the datasets used to produce this data.
How rates are calculated
The neonatal mortality rate is the number of deaths of newborn babies divided by the total number of live births, multiplied by 1,000.
The ethnic groups used in this data
Data is shown for the 18 ethnic groups used in the 2011 Census.
In data by ethnicity and cause of death, some ethnic groups have been combined. This is to protect people’s confidentiality and because the numbers involved are too small to make reliable generalisations. For example, the Black Caribbean and Other Black groups have been combined; this allows potential differences within the aggregated Black group to be identified without compromising confidentiality.
Data on neonatal mortality rates usually uses the ethnicity of the baby from the birth notification service. This should be provided by the mother, but isn’t always in practice. To provide a more reliable ethnic grouping, the data on this page uses the mother's ethnicity at the time of the 2011 Census.
Methodology
Read the detailed methodology document for the data on this page. You can also read the user guide to child and infant mortality statistics methodology.
The data comes from the Census linked births and infant deaths (CLBID) dataset, and the analysis was carried out in the Secure Research Service, part of the Office for National Statistics. This dataset links, where possible:
- births from 2009 to 2019
- the 2011 Census data for each baby’s mother
- infant deaths from 2009 to 2020
75.7% of live births in the data were linked to a mother’s 2011 Census record; 63.3% of infant deaths records were then linked.
Some records were more likely to be unlinked, and therefore not included in the data. This includes data on:
- mothers born outside the UK
- mothers living in London
- younger mothers
- babies whose ethnicity was not White
As such, the estimates presented should be considered indicative, rather than comprehensive.
While the findings are consistent with ONS statistics on infant mortality, the data on this page is not directly comparable. ONS data uses the ethnicity of the baby from the birth notification service.
The data is an average for the 11 years from 2009 to 2019. This is to make sure there are enough people to be able to make reliable generalisations. You can read more about combining multiple years of data and some of the issues involved.
This work contains statistical data from ONS which is Crown Copyright. The use of the ONS statistical data in this work does not imply the endorsement of the ONS in relation to the interpretation or analysis of the statistical data. This work uses research datasets which may not exactly reproduce National Statistics aggregates.
In the data file
The data file also provides confidence intervals for the rates of deaths among newborn babies by mother’s ethnicity.
3. By mother's ethnicity
| Ethnicity | Rate per 1,000 live births | Number of newborn deaths | Number of live births |
|---|---|---|---|
| All | 3.6 | 20,409 | 5,631,478 |
| Bangladeshi | 4.7 | 379 | 80,277 |
| Chinese | 2.7 | 96 | 36,013 |
| Indian | 4.5 | 740 | 164,699 |
| Pakistani | 7.8 | 1,576 | 201,257 |
| Asian other | 3.9 | 375 | 95,773 |
| Black African | 6.2 | 928 | 150,292 |
| Black Caribbean | 6.4 | 343 | 53,254 |
| Black other | 7.5 | 174 | 23,133 |
| Mixed White and Asian | 3.7 | 110 | 29,494 |
| Mixed White and Black African | 4.1 | 61 | 15,030 |
| Mixed White and Black Caribbean | 5.0 | 265 | 52,712 |
| Mixed other | 3.2 | 94 | 29,581 |
| White British | 3.3 | 13,927 | 4,218,928 |
| White Gypsy or Irish Traveller | 4.9 | 52 | 10,674 |
| White Irish | 2.8 | 95 | 34,143 |
| White other | 2.6 | 970 | 376,246 |
| Arab | 4.1 | 100 | 24,582 |
| Other | 3.5 | 124 | 35,390 |
Download table data for ‘By mother's ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By mother's ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Deaths of newborn babies By mother's ethnicity Summary
The data shows that:
- mothers in the Pakistani ethnic group had the highest rate of newborn deaths out of all ethnic groups (7.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births)
- mothers in the White Other ethnic group had the lowest rate (2.6 deaths for every 1,000 live births)
4. By mother’s ethnicity and cause of death
| Ethnicity | Antepartum infection | Asphyxia, Anoxia or Trauma | Congenital anomalies | External conditions | Infections | SIDS | Immaturity related conditions | Other specific conditions | Other conditions | All (number) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indian | 6 | 6 | 31 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 2 | 4 | 48 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 2 | 740 |
| Pakistani or Bangladeshi | 3 | 3 | 52 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 33 | 1 | 3 | 1,955 |
| Chinese or other Asian | 5 | 7 | 33 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 4 | 3 | 42 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 3 | 471 |
| Black African | 7 | 4 | 31 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 48 | 1 | 2 | 928 |
| Black Caribbean or other Black | 8 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 24 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 3 | 6 | 52 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 2 | 517 |
| Mixed | 5 | 4 | 27 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 3 | 8 | 47 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 3 | 530 |
| White British | 4 | 7 | 29 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 41 | 1 | 2 | 13,927 |
| Other White | 4 | 8 | 34 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 41 | 1 | 3 | 1,117 |
| Other | withheld to protect confidentiality | 6 | 38 | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | 41 | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | 224 |
| All (number) | 928 | 1,328 | 6,496 | 349 | 695 | 1,373 | 8,476 | 260 | 504 | 20,409 |
Download table data for ‘By mother’s ethnicity and cause of death’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By mother’s ethnicity and cause of death’ (CSV)
Summary of Deaths of newborn babies By mother’s ethnicity and cause of death Summary
The data shows that:
- in every ethnic group, over 70% of newborn deaths were from congenital anomalies or immaturity-related conditions, such as respiratory and cardiovascular disorders
- mothers in the combined Pakistani and Bangladeshi ethnic group had the highest percentage of newborn deaths from congenital anomalies out of all ethnic groups (52%)
- mothers in the combined Black Caribbean and Black Other ethnic group had the highest percentage of newborn deaths from immaturity-related conditions out of all ethnic groups (52%) – they also had the highest percentage of newborn deaths from antepartum infections (8%)
- mothers in the White British and Mixed ethnic groups had the highest percentage of newborn deaths from sudden infant death syndrome out of all ethnic groups (8%)
5. By mother’s ethnicity and place of birth, and cause of death
| Antepartum infection | Asphyxia, Anoxia or Trauma | Congenital anomalies | SIDS | Immaturity related conditions | All other causes | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Antepartum infection UK born mothers | Antepartum infection Non-UK born mothers | Asphyxia, Anoxia or Trauma UK born mothers | Asphyxia, Anoxia or Trauma Non-UK born mothers | Congenital anomalies UK born mothers | Congenital anomalies Non-UK born mothers | SIDS UK born mothers | SIDS Non-UK born mothers | Immaturity related conditions UK born mothers | Immaturity related conditions Non-UK born mothers | All other causes UK born mothers | All other causes Non-UK born mothers |
| Indian | 5 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 27 | 35 | 4 | 3 | 52 | 43 | 6 | 6 |
| Pakistani or Bangladeshi | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 47 | 56 | 2 | 2 | 38 | 29 | 8 | 8 |
| Chinese or other Asian | withheld to protect confidentiality | 5 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 9 | 27 | 34 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 3 | 47 | 41 | 15 | 8 |
| Black African | 9 | 7 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 4 | 20 | 33 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 3 | 58 | 47 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 7 |
| Black Caribbean or other Black | 9 | 7 | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | 17 | 34 | 7 | 5 | 57 | 45 | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality |
| Mixed | 6 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 4 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 24 | 38 | 10 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 47 | 47 | 10 | withheld to protect confidentiality |
| White British | 4 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 7 | 10 | 29 | 29 | 8 | 5 | 41 | 43 | 9 | withheld to protect confidentiality |
| Other White | withheld to protect confidentiality | 4 | 9 | 8 | 36 | 34 | 10 | 4 | 35 | 42 | withheld to protect confidentiality | 9 |
| Other | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | 24 | 43 | withheld to protect confidentiality | withheld to protect confidentiality | 36 | 42 | 20 | withheld to protect confidentiality |
Download table data for ‘By mother’s ethnicity and place of birth, and cause of death’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By mother’s ethnicity and place of birth, and cause of death’ (CSV)
Summary of Deaths of newborn babies By mother’s ethnicity and place of birth, and cause of death Summary
The data shows that:
- in most ethnic groups, mothers born outside the UK had a higher percentage of newborn deaths from congenital anomalies than mothers born in the UK – the biggest percentage differences were in the Other (19 percentage points), combined Black Caribbean and Black Other (17 percentage points) and Mixed (14 percentage points) ethnic groups
- in the Asian and Black ethnic groups, the percentage of newborn deaths from immaturity-related conditions was higher for mothers born in the UK than those born outside the UK
- in most ethnic groups where data was available, the percentage of newborn deaths from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) was lower for mothers born outside of the UK than mothers born in the UK
- the percentage of newborn deaths from antepartum infection was higher for mothers in the Black African (9%) and Black Caribbean or Black Other (9%) ethnic groups who were born in the UK, compared with those born outside the UK
6. Data sources
Source
Child and infant mortality in England and Wales
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Office for National Statistics
Note on corrections or updates
This work uses research datasets which may not exactly reproduce National Statistics aggregates.
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The aim of this data is to monitor stillbirths, infant and childhood deaths in England and Wales, and the associated risk factors.
Secondary source
2011 Census: Detailed Characteristics for England and Wales
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Office for National Statistics
Publication frequency
10 years
Purpose of data source
The 2011 Census statistics provide information about the number, distribution and characteristics of the population in England and Wales at Census day (27 March 2011).