A team from the Albury Wodonga Health maternity unit will learn next month what impact a nine-month project designed to reduce stillbirths has had.
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The Safer Care Victoria Safer Baby Collaborative has a goal to reduce the rate of avoidable stillbirths in the third trimester by 30 per cent in 21 participating maternity services across Victoria.
Victoria's stillbirth rate is 6.2 per 1000 births and research suggests many are avoidable, with awareness of risk factors for stillbirth being low.
One strategy is that all women who book in for a birth at Albury Wodonga Health undertake a Smokelyser test to determine the rate of Carbon Monoxide in the blood stream, which is mostly associated with smoking.
AWH operational director of women's and children's services Julie Wright said every week, staff had been reporting on key factors in the project.
"If we book 20 women in, the expectation is all 20 would have been screened for smoking with a carbon monoxide test - whether or not they smoke," she said.
"Your partner might smoke, or there could be an illegal heater that affects levels.
"We're also asking mums to sleep on their side, particularly after the 28th week of pregnancy.
"We know when mum's flat on her back at that time of the pregnancy, the weight of the uterus compresses the big uterine artery that flows the blood up to the uterus, and that can have an effect on the oxygenation to the babies."
Another strategy focuses on fetal movements.
"We used to say if your baby hasn't kicked 10 times within a certain number of hours, ring us, but we're now saying if you noticed your baby's movements are different to normal, come in," Ms Wright said.
"It's high vigilance and ongoing monitoring."
The Safer Care Victoria joint-project with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement has been running since June.
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"We've been down twice to Melbourne and we're going back in March, where they will collate nine months' worth of data across all the health services," Ms Wright said.
"Hopefully it will be a good result.
"We know across Australia the stillbirth rate has not changed in 20 years.
"We see how hard it is going through something like that, it's with you for the rest of your life."