ACT Maternal and Perinatal Data Collection
The ACT Maternal Perinatal Data Collection is a population-based collection covering all births in ACT hospitals, public and private, and home births in the ACT. It does not include interstate births where the mother is usually an ACT resident.
ACT Health receives notifications from patient administrative and clinical records, with the information collected by midwives or other birth attendants. These data are used for service planning, monitoring and internal and public reporting. The data also contribute to the National Perinatal Data Collection maintained by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
What the data collection includes
The data collection includes all live births and still births of at least 20 weeks' gestation or at least 400 grams birthweight.
Information collected has both data items relating to the mother including:
- demographic characteristics
- factors relating to the pregnancy
- labour and birth
- data items relating to the baby
- birth status (live birth or stillbirth)
- sex
- gestational age at birth
- birthweight
- neonatal morbidity and deaths.
Notifications to the ACT Maternal Perinatal Data Collection undergo a validation process with the notifier (mostly hospitals), that includes linking to the ACT Admitted Patient Care data. This linking is used to ascertain if there are records that have not yet been submitted by the hospitals and to provide coding for maternal condition and complications.
For more information about the ACT Maternal Perinatal Data Collection, contact HealthInfo@act.gov.au.