3 ms·

Infant mortality is something like 3.3 per 1000 in the UK. 25% of that happens in the first week, and women are usually discharged with their baby after 2 or 3

Infant mortality is something like 3.3 per 1000 in the UK. 25% of that happens in the first week, and women are usually discharged with their baby after 2 or 3 days. And that mortality rate includes things like known defects that are incompatible with life that would not be considered suspicious when the baby dies. So, there should be far fewer than one death per thousand of the newborns in the hospital. Since her activities took course over a year, it's quite possible that no unexplained deaths happened apart from the ones that she was involved with. It's also possible there might be one death not caused by her that just happened to occur on her shift.

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
Note that the babies involved in the incidents were premature, and mortality for premature babies is going to be lower than that for full term babies. Further, as I understand it, those were babies that were being cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and may have been vulnerable and less likely to survive to begin with. For example, I remember the press noting that a baby who died was no bigger than a hand. The press reported this to tug at readers' heartstrings, but it also has the effect of reminding that a baby born so early is in a precarious situation and may well not make it. In any case, the spreadsheet above doesn't give any of that information, either, so there is not enough information to know whether the deaths were suspicious in the first place. Looking at the spreadsheet, all we can say is that the only reason those incidents are associated with Lucy Letby is because Lucy Letby was on shift. Which is a tautology and not useful to make any decisions.
gus_massa 3y ago
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Letby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Letby > The numbers of unexplained collapses were particularly abnormal: there had previously been only two or three deaths a year in the neonatal unit. She was convicted for cases between June 2015 and June 2016, so I'd expect to see like 2 or 3 cases of natural deaths. Assuming she works there for 40 hours of the 168 hours of the week, it's like 1 coincidence and 1 or 2 when she was not there. Been there when 7 babies died is a LOT of bad luck. Assuming a Poisson distribution with lamba=2.5/4, P(7)=7E-13 ...

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago

Note that the babies involved in the incidents were premature, and mortality for premature babies is going to be lower than that for full term babies. Further, as I understand it, those were babies that were being cared for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and may have been vulnerable and less likely to survive to begin with. For example, I remember the press noting that a baby who died was no bigger than a hand. The press reported this to tug at readers' heartstrings, but it also has the effect of reminding that a baby born so early is in a precarious situation and may well not make it. In any case, the spreadsheet above doesn't give any of that information, either, so there is not enough information to know whether the deaths were suspicious in the first place. Looking at the spreadsheet, all we can say is that the only reason those incidents are associated with Lucy Letby is because Lucy Letby was on shift. Which is a tautology and not useful to make any decisions.

gus_massa 3y ago

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Letby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Letby > The numbers of unexplained collapses were particularly abnormal: there had previously been only two or three deaths a year in the neonatal unit. She was convicted for cases between June 2015 and June 2016, so I'd expect to see like 2 or 3 cases of natural deaths. Assuming she works there for 40 hours of the 168 hours of the week, it's like 1 coincidence and 1 or 2 when she was not there. Been there when 7 babies died is a LOT of bad luck. Assuming a Poisson distribution with lamba=2.5/4, P(7)=7E-13 ...