Prevalence of Stillbirth and its Associated Antepartum Risk Factors

The aim of perinatal care is to achieve a safe delivery of a healthy baby and good maternal care. The proportion of intrapartum stillbirths can be substantially declined with improved obstetric care; however, the number of antepartum stillbirths remains high due to an incomplete understanding of the risk factors. Methods: This was an observational prospective study conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, S. M. G. S. Hospital, Jammu over a period of one year i. e. from September 2017 to August 2018 after approval from the Hospital Ethical Committee. Subjects were patients coming to the hospital with documented IUD and patients with stillbirth occurring during the hospital stay, with gestational agegreater than22 weeks and birth weight greater than500gm. Results: We observed that a total of 22, 723 deliveries occurred in the hospital out of which 800 were stillbirths; stillbirth rate was found to be 35.20 per 1000 births. The mean age of patients was 26.57�4.65years. Majority of the patients in the study were primigravida (43.13 %). Maximum number of patients (66.5 %) had antenatal risk factors. Conclusion: Our study showed that the majority of risk factors associated with stillbirth are antepartum with hypertensive disorders (16.44 %) being the most common risk factor followed by anemia (12.54 %).