Retrospective Analysis of Risk Factors for Intrauterine Fetal Death in a Busy Zonal Hospital

Introduction: Stillbirth is a silent tragedy, potential life lost after a period of expectation and excitation. It also has psycho-social impact and future obstetric complications. Though 1/3rd causes are not yet classifiable, some of them are still preventable. Recognition of risk factor and its estimation will lead to prevention of it. Method: Retrospective record review (2017- 2020) of stillbirths in a tertiary care military hospital was done based on available various risk factor like maternal age, parity, abortion history, blood group, sex of the baby, weight of the baby, mode of the delivery and possible cause of the still birth was collected and analyzed. Results: Still birth rate was 6 per 1000 in this hospital. 54% stillbirth occurred in the pregnant women belonged to age group of 20-25 years and almost half of the cases occurred in primigravida cases. In 71% of multipara cases, they had a history of abortion. Most common period of still birth was preterm period (32-37 weeks) (47.4%) and causes were pregnancy induced hypertension (39.5%) followed by gestational hypertension (21%). Conclusion: Stillbirth could be prevented by early recognition of risk factors, more frequent visit of at-risk pregnancy and awareness generation of at-risk mothers like primigravida and young age group.