Rate and Causes of Perinatal Mortality in Imam Hospital, Sari 2007

The rate of perinatal mortality is one of the important indexes of the health status in a society. Improvement of the health status of the neonates as a high risk group mandates us to recognize the underlying factors of perinatal mortality and implement policies to correct the present situation. Death certificate of the neonates is one of the measures to give an estimate of perinatal mortality rate in our health system.The aim of the present study was to evaluate the rate of perinatal mortality rate. This retrospective descriptive study was done by reviewing the hospital records of dead neonates. Studied population was neonates who died from 22 weeks of gestational age until one week after delivery, or neonates who died after 22 weeks of gestational age at Imam Khomeini teaching hospital in Sari/ Iran in 2007. All neonates who were referred to other hospitals or were discharged before seven days were followed. Causes of death were classified according to International Classification of Disease, 10th edition. There were 71 cases (%2/7) of perinatal mortality among all those born at Imam Khomeini teaching hospital in 2007.Autopsy was not done for determing the cause of death in our study. Neonates who had died due to maternal causes mostly were multiple gestations (%27.3) and who had died due to the problems of fetus or infant mostly was unknown causes (%28.6). The perinatal mortality rate was 27 in 1000 birth in out study period.The decrease in this rate would need further study of the causes of perinatal mortality and its preventive strategies.