The Office for National Statistics has released provisional quarterly neonatal mortality data for England and Wales, covering the period from January 2025 to March 2026, alongside finalised annual figures stretching back to 2019.
There were 1,758 neonatal deaths in England and Wales in 2024 — accounting for 76 per cent of all infant deaths recorded that year. The annual neonatal mortality rate held at 3.0 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024, unchanged compared with 2023.
The first quarterly figure for 2026 puts England’s neonatal mortality rate at 2.8 deaths per 1,000 live births in the first quarter. Across the four quarters of 2025, provisional rates ranged between 2.6 and 3.0 deaths per 1,000 live births. Those provisional figures may yet rise as late death registrations are received.
A neonatal death is defined as the death of a baby aged under 28 days. The new dataset breaks figures down by gestational age, mother’s age, ethnicity and area deprivation — detail that annual releases alone couldn’t provide at speed.
The move follows a 2023 request from the Department of Health and Social Care for more timely data on births, stillbirths and neonatal mortality. The ONS had already begun publishing quarterly birth and stillbirth figures before extending the approach to neonatal deaths.
Publishing these figures comes with a built-in lag. Because death registrations can take longer to complete and investigate than birth registrations, the ONS states that neonatal death figures for any given quarter will generally appear around six months after that quarter ends — longer than the wait for quarterly birth data.
The ONS says it plans to continue publishing quarterly updates alongside its quarterly birth figures.
Source: @ONS