West Midlands infant mortality

You asked

Mrs. Renée Short asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what are the figures for baby deaths in the West Midlands in the last 10 years; and if he will break the figures down into the respective area health authorities.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1981/jun/03/infant-mortality-west-midlands

Only six years of data were disclosed (1974 to 1979) and the perinatal rates provided included only baby deaths that occurred within seven days of birth aggregated with the stillbirths and not the figures for baby deaths that occurred during a whole year.

I should be grateful if you'd:

1. Explain why only six years of data was released despite "the figures for baby deaths in the West Midlands in the last 10 years" being asked for

2. Explain why only perinatal mortality rates were provided when the question implied that Ms Short was interested in the figures for babies who had died, which suggests that she was interested in the data for deaths of babies who had been born alive and not just those within the first seven days of birth, ie infant mortality rates

3. Provide the missing four years of data from 1970 to 1973 and present all ten years of data in excel format

We said

Only six years of data was released because ONS only holds sub-national infant mortality data from 1974 onwards.

There is no documentation available surrounding parliamentary questions answered by ONS in 1981 so it is not known why perinatal mortality figures were provided rather than infant mortality figures.

I have attached a table showing infant mortality figures for West Midlands 1974 to 1979. This is extracted from the publication 'Key Population and Vital Statistics'.