By Professor John Robertson OBA

In the Guardian today:

The introduction of UK austerity policies has been associated with a striking increase in the number of babies in Scotland being born smaller or earlier than expected, data suggests.

Researchers believe cuts to social security benefits and services are key to understanding these trends, which have hit families living in the poorest neighbourhoods the hardest.

and further down:

Given that post-austerity poverty rates are actually fairly considerably higher in England, the expectation is that we will have seen similar trends there.

_{https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/02/uk-austerity-policies-premature-low-birth-weight-babies-scotland}

The Labour government’s early actions on, for example, keeping the two-child benefit cap are certain to keep full-blown austerity for the children of the poor in England, resulting in more of the above tragic outcomes while the Child Payment roll-out is already moderating the impact in Scotland and there is clear evidence in stillbirth and infant mortality of this and other measures unique to Scotland.

Stillbirth rate in UK is 4 per 1 000, 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/

A 0.5 per 1 000 difference, between 4 in the UK and 3.5 in Scotland, seems small but at that level is a 12.5% gap and meant hundreds saved in Scotland every year.