Abstract

Causes of stillbirth and early neonatal death have been reported by several authors. Recently, the incidence of perinatal death is considerable 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 cases 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) of neonatal death occurred within 24 hours of life. 2) The cases of body weight under 2,500gm occupied 58.5% of stillbirths and 60% of neonatal 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 tissues in the lung, liver, pancreas, kidney. etc.