While infantile mortality decreases everywhere in Europe, it progresses in France. According to the High Authority for Health, more than half of the deaths of newborns linked to care could have been avoided. Surveillance faults, human errors, saturated hospitals: a red alert on a breathless system.
A sad observation: France wins in European rankings
France, formerly a model in perinatal health, is today relegated to 22ᵉ place in Europe for infant mortality, according to INSEE. While the majority of European countries manage to reduce this death rate in children under one year old, the French trend has been opposite for more than ten years. In question: inequalities in access to care, the gradual closure of small maternities and a saturation of neonatology services, which display occupancy rates exceeding 95 % permanently.
© True Medical
One in 250 children died before the age of one in France
Sometimes fatal medical errors … and avoidable
According to a report published by the High Authority for Health (HAS) on May 21, 2025, 57 % of serious adverse events associated with care (EIGS) occurring in newborns were avoidable or probably avoidable. Clearly: these babies might not have had to die.
These EIGS include monitoring defects, errors in the interpretation of fetal heart rate, care organization problems, even drug errors. Of the 328 cases analyzed between 2017 and 2024, more than one in two led to the death of the child, and almost a third to endanger their life. Most of the time, better communication between professionals, a second opinion, or a simple application of the protocols could have changed the outcome.
Ten solutions, but how much will be applied?
Faced with this avoidable drama, HAS offers ten clear recommendations, ranging from compulsory training of professionals to securing home delivery, including better management of perinatal transfers. Common sense recommendations … but which are struggling to materialize in the field. Many caregivers denounce a glaring lack of means, a paralyzing bureaucracy and political decisions disconnected from realities.
The moratorium on the closure of small maternities, recently voted by deputies, is also strongly criticized by healthcare professionals, who see it as a risk of maintaining under-equipped structures without solving the substantive problem: ensuring secure and fair care throughout the territory.
Infant mortality is not just a freezing statistic: it is a major health alert signal. In France, babies continue to die of avoidable causes, in a hospital system in tension. To avoid new dramas, it is no longer enough to indignant – you have to act, reorganize, and invest in perinatal health.