I could wrong here but isn’t the above claim by the Herald back to front? Are they saying that ICU admission makes any mother more likely to have a stillbirth?
Could it be that those most likely to have a stillbirth are then more likely to be admitted to ICU to save the baby and them?
Well, down the page:
So, the headline and opening statements by the Herald are misleading at best?
Missing, of course, from the Herald report, the stillbirth rate in Northern Ireland is 4.5 per 1 000 live births, 3.7 in England & Wales, 3.5 in Scotland.
Why might Scotland have a lower rate?
More midwives, more health visitors and cleaner hospitals after 20 Oct 2008 when Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon announced the move to end outsourcing of catering, cleaning and porter services across all NHS …https://www.nursingtimes.net/archive/scotland-axes-outsourced-hospital-cleaning-20-10-2008/
Talking-up Scotland / Facts on NHS, Crime, ferries and everything else you can think of 
12 times more likely than what?
Not being admitted? Other part of the uk? The rest of Europe? The rest of the world? My granny (who died before I was born)?
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12 times more likely to read this sort of thing about how bad everything is in Scotland, in MSM.
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This a first time exploratory study to identify potential other factors. This is explained in the article, but further down after the lurid headlines and framing.
it another example of the baleful practice of data mining to find a datum, which taken out of context and presented out of context results in a seeming,y appalling situation.
the report itself, in the final line points out the data are not statistically significant. This is because the sample is so small.
I suspect the Herald has given it the shock horror presentation because NHS performance is an issue in the election and, in pretty miserable company Scotland’s indicators are somewhat better than those in the rest of the UK. Ergo, the union is media need to find a ‘Scotland is bad’ angle.
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It is indeed a weird headline, even for the Heralds own “Trusted Journalism” standards.
I guess it was just a rush job by Helen McArdle as there were not enough implied “SNP Bad” stories kicking about.
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