More than 900 maternity closings in 5o years. The National Assembly approved a large majority Thursday evening at first reading a bill to fight against Infant mortalitywhich provides in particular to establish a three -year moratorium on maternity closures.
The bill brought by the centrist group Liot as part of its parliamentary “niche”, the day dedicated to its texts, was approved by 97 votes for 4 (from the group together for the Republic).
The text intends to respond to the increase in infant mortality, the rate of which has gone from 3.5 deaths for 1,000 children born living in 2011, to 4.1 in 2024, according to INSEE. An “alarming” trend according to the deputy Liot Paul-André Colombani, rapporteur of the bill, and who “goes counter-current that observed in the majority of European countries ”.
The defenders of the moratorium relate this figure with the closure of maternities, leading to an elongation of travel times for mothers. Their number would have increased from 1,369 in 1975 to 464 today, according to MP UDR Sophie Ricourt Vaginay.
But “a maternity that achieves few deliveries can offer less security, for lack of regular practice of obstetric gestures,” said the Renaissance deputy Jean-François Rousset. And the rise in infantile mortality is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon, underlined the Minister of Health Yannick Neuder, pointing in particular “demographic factors such as the decline in the age of the first child and the increase in multiple pregnancies, just like the extreme age of mothers”.
The creation of a “national birth register”
The moratorium was finally voted “except in the event of danger to the safety of patients”. Its adoption was not, however, acquired: in the social affairs committee, the measure had been deleted, replaced by the obligation of “a prior assessment of the possible alternatives” before The closure of a maternity.
But the deputies finally approved on Thursday a series of identical amendments to restore the key article of the bill, the government expressing a wisdom notice.
During this moratorium, an “inventory” will be carried out on maternities practicing less than a thousand deliveries per year. Another measure aims to create a “national birth register”, to bring together statistical elements hitherto scattered, and better understand the reasons for current trends.
