Stillbirth and some related factors, Babol, 1998

Abstract

Objective: Stillbirth is a pregnancy complication. Identifying the individual, familial and socio-economical characteristics of mothers who had stillbirth and collecting epidemiological data about fetal death leads to appropriate interventions, which save the life of a considerable number of fetuses. The aim of this study is to investigate the incidence of stillbirth and comparing the individual, familial and socio-economical characteristics of mothers who had stillbirths and live births at Babol hospitals in 1998. Methods: This is a case-control study. So all stillbirths (Cases were 74) and live births (Control were 148) born at Babol hospitals from June to December 1998 that are matched for parity, birth time and kind of hospital were selected randomly. All births in the mentioned time were collected. Findings: The incidence of stillbirth was 19.9 per 1000 births (86/4305). Mean and SEM of age were 25.47±5.2 in case group and 24.58±4.91 among controls. A history of abortion and stillbirth was two times more in cases than in controls. The frequency of abortion and number 2-year-old infants was two times more in cases. The interval between births was less than two years in case and nearly two times more in control group. Most of the cases were in low economic status (3.1% versus 21.6%) and had improper relationship with their husbands (5.4% versus 2%). There was significantly different in findings of gestational age, fetal weight, prenatal care, tetanus vaccine injection and taking iron tablets in both groups. Conclusion: Based on our findings, we can conclude that identifying mothers who are at high risk of stillbirth by studying the individual, familial and socio-economical characteristics in prenatal care, can help us to save a considerable number of fetuses.

Keywords

• stillbirth
• fetal death
• prenatal care
• demographic characteristics