Stillbirth in the Czech Republic at 2005 year I. Methods and Results of Frequency Analysis

Overview

Objective:
To identify main causes of unchanged stillbirth rate in the Czech Republic.

Design:
Nationwide retrospective analysis of stillbirth.

Setting:
Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Prague.

Methods:
Frequency analysis of selected data on all antenatal stillbirth cases of singleton fetuses with birth weight 2000 grams and more without congenital malformations.

Results:
This selected group of 151 stillborn babies contributed by more than half to the overall stillbirth rate (1.56‰of 2.7‰). We collected 30 data items including demographic characteristics, social data, data on prenatal care, information about maternal and fetal complications and data on time and place of delivery, using special questionnaire. The analysis has shown that the most of risk factors indentified about 30 years ago has only low value of relative risk today. Only 50 % of pregnant women with those risk factors experienced development of one of the five serious pathological statuses. In 52 pregnant women there were no risk factors and no pathological statuses. The more serious clinical status (categories: no risk, risk pregnancy, and pathological pregnancy) the sooner the delivery of prenatal stillbirth.

Conclusions:
We created a database of selected stillbirth cases (63% of all stillbirth) using a questionnaire collecting 30 data items on each case (return of 98.1%). Analysis has identified the most frequent maternal and fetal risk factors and serious pathological statuses.

Key words:
stillbirth, creation of database, risk factors, pathological status, frequency analysis