The Assembly approves at first reading a three-year moratorium on maternity closures
By The New Obs with AFP
Published on
The entrance to the maternity emergency department at Dijon hospital, January 13, 2024. JC TARDIVON/SIPA
The National Assembly approved by a large majority on Thursday evening, May 15, at first reading a bill aimed at combating infant mortality , which notably provides for the establishment of a three-year moratorium on maternity ward closures , "except in cases of danger to patient safety."
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The bill put forward by the centrist Liot group during its parliamentary "niche," the day dedicated to its texts, was approved by 97 votes in favor and 4 against (from the Ensemble pour la République group).
The text aims to respond to the rise in infant mortality , the rate of which has risen from 3.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011 to 4.1 in 2024, according to INSEE. An "alarming" trend according to MP Liot Paul-André Colombani, rapporteur of the bill, and which "goes against that observed in the majority of European countries" .
Creation of a “national birth register”Defenders of the moratorium link this figure to the closure of maternity wards, leading to longer travel times for mothers. Their number has fallen from 1,369 in 1975 to 464 today, according to UDR MP Sophie Ricourt Vaginay. But "a maternity ward that performs few deliveries may offer less safety, due to a lack of regular obstetric procedures," according to Renaissance MP Jean-François Rousset.
And the rise in infant mortality is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon, stressed Health Minister Yannick Neuder, pointing in particular to "demographic factors such as the later age of the first child and the increase in multiple pregnancies, as well as the extreme age of mothers."
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