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PERINATAL MORTALITY
Author(s) -
PETTERSSON FOLKE,
MELANDER STIG,
LAGERBERG DAGMAR
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1973.tb08097.x
Subject(s) - medicine , perinatal mortality , infant mortality , pediatrics , neonatal mortality , birth order , mortality rate , obstetrics , pregnancy , demography , population , fetus , surgery , environmental health , genetics , sociology , biology
Summary From November, 1967, to the end of December, 1969, perinatal deaths among 7 190 consecutive single births in the University Hospital of Uppsala, Sweden, were analysed in a study using multiple regression analysis and a program for selecting optimal combinations of explanatory variables. The overall perinatal mortality rate, expressed as stillbirths and early infant deaths per 1 000 births, was found to be 15.2; the coefficient of determination was 0.2245. A significantly higher perinatal mortality rate was found for the children of the youngest and the oldest mothers, of mothers with immunizations, breech deliveries, toxaemias, short gesta‐tional periods, and for low‐weight and congenitally malformed children. Babies of primi‐parae with breech deliveries and of smoking mothers showed lower perinatal mortality rates than children of corresponding contrasted mothers, a finding which may at first seem surprising but which can probably be given a natural explanation. The selection of optimal combinations of explanatory variables gave predictor trees which can be utilized for determination of favourable and unfavourable combinations of factors associated with perinatal death. Some individual cases of foetal deaths were analysed in detail. The study ends in a discussion of possible preventive measures to be taken in order to prevent perinatal deaths in the future.