CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY OF CAUSES AND DETERMINANTS OF STILLBIRTHS\nAT TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL

Abstract

Introduction- Stillbirth rates are unacceptably high in developing countries. It re\uf002ects the suboptimum quality of maternal and child health\nservices. Material And Methods- Prospective observational cross sectional study, carried out for one year duration at tertiary care referral hospital\nin central India. Results-There were 9165 deliveries and 9318 babies born in the hospital.There were 318 stillbirths of which 245(77%) were antepartum stillbirths and 73(23%) were intra-partum stillbirths. The stillbirth rate in the present study was 34/1000 births. Ante-partum haemorrhage\n(36%) and pregnancy induced hypertension (21%) were most common causes of ante-partum stillbirths where as extreme prematurity with very\nlow birth weight (41%), birth asphyxia, meconium aspiration (21%) and intra-partum haemorrhage (15%) were common causes of intra-partum\nstillbirths. Conclusion- There is high rate of stillbirths in the present study. Health education, improvement of maternal nutrition, regular antenatal\ncheck-ups, high risk pregnancy identi\uf001cation and timely referral and institutional deliveries will help in preventing large number of stillbirths.