Gestational-age-specific stillbirth risk among Australian Aborigines

Previous studies have found that, for preterm babies, the risk of stillbirth among Australian Aborigines is similar to the risk for whites. In contrast, at full term, the risk for Aborigines is more than twice the risk for whites. However, these studies (like most other analyses of stillbirths) used the number of births at each gestational age to calculate the risk. For stillbirths, the risk is more appropriately estimated using the number of babies in utero. This paper presents the first comparison of stillbirth risk for Australian Aborigines and whites using the more appropriate denominator.