ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1514661
This article is part of the Research TopicEarly Maternal and Child Health Management and the Impact of Living EnvironmentView all 13 articles
PERINATAL OUTCOMES IN MALTA BETWEEN 2008 AND 2022 -A COMPARISON OF THREE 5 YEARLY EPOCHS
Provisionally accepted
- 1Mater Dei Hospital, Imsida, Malta
- 2Directorate for Health Information and Research Malta, Guardamangia, Malta
- 3Poole Hospital, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Poole, England, United Kingdom
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BackgroundPerinatal and neonatal mortality rates are quality indicators of antenatal, neonatal and postnatal care. This study describes perinatal outcomes for Malta over the 15 year period 2008-2022 to inform future practice and healthcare provision.MethodologyAggregate anonymous data on perinatal outcomes from 2008 to 2022 were obtained from the National Obstetric Information System (NOIS), Directorate for Health Information and Research (DHIR). Data for each variable was grouped into three 5-year intervals (2008-2012, 2013-2017 and 2018-2022) to investigate trends over time. ResultsTotal births increased over time (p-value 0.008), mainly driven by singleton pregnancies (p 0.004), while multiple pregnancies remained stable. Live births increased (p-value 0.008), with a significant decrease in stillbirth rate (difference of 2.22 stillbirths per 1000 births) noted since 2018. There were no statistically significant changes in post-term, preterm or low birthweight deliveries (p-value 0.73). The neonatal mortality rate showed a downward trend from 4.92 per 1000 live births for the years 2008-2012 to 3.92 per 1000 births for the 2018-2022 epoch, but this could not be statistically confirmed. Data for ART pregnancies was only available as of 2013, analysis of which showed a significant increase in trend over the years with a p-value of <0.05. ConclusionThis study's findings highlight important public health implications for Malta and the world. The stable rates of preterm and low birth weight, and the decline in stillbirths, suggest improvements in maternal and infant health. However, Malta still lags behind the rest of Europe. This along with the overall increase in the number of births, may be attributed to the growing number of immigrants within the pregnant population, who have specific healthcare needs which need specific attention. These results can help inform public health policies and improve maternity and neonatal services in Malta and regions with similarly increasing immigrant populations.
Keywords: perinatal, neonatal, outcomes, Malta, Public Health
Received: 21 Oct 2024; Accepted: 22 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 De Battista, Gatt and Khashu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Minesh Khashu, Poole Hospital, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, Poole, BH15 2JB, England, United Kingdom
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