Causes of stillbirth and early neonatal death have been reported by several authors.
Recently, the incidence of perinatal death is considerably reduced by the improved
antenatal care, increased hospital deliveries and developed resuscitative measures.
However, there are only a few studies regarding to more accurate causes of perinatal
death based on autopsies in this country.
The author studied a total of 47 cases of stillbirth and 47 cased of neonatal death
with correlation of clinical presentations and pathologic findings of autopsies.
The results of the study were as follows;
1) The incidence of stillbirth was the highest at the gestational age between 33∼40
weeks (29 of 47 cases), and the majority (38 of 47 cases) of neonatal death occurred
within 24 hours of life.
2) The cases of body weight under 2,5009m occupied 58.5% of stillbirths and 60% of
neo-natal deaths studied in this series.
3) Complications during pregnancies associated with perinatal death were
hydramnios(21.1%), toxemia(15.8%) and cord compression(15.8%).
4) In analysis of causes of perinatal death, the most common cause of death was
anoxia(31.9%). Other causes of death were congenital malformation(20.2%), hyaline
membrane disease(17.0%), congenital syphilis(5.3%), aspiration pneumonia(5.3%) and
cytomegalic inclusion disease (2.2%).
5) There were only 19 cases that were succumbed congenital malformation among 29
cases.
6) As congenital tumor, congenital neuroblastoma, placental hemangioma and
retroperitoneal teratoma were present.
7) In histologic examination of 5 cases of congenital syphilis, the spirochetal
organisms were identified n 2 cases by Levaditi staining. All 5 cases showed histologic
findings of syphilis which were lymphoplasmocytic infiltrates with fibrosis of interstitial
tissus in the lung, liver, pancreas, kidney, etc.
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