Abstract:
Background
Perinatal mortality is a sensitive indicator of the quality of health care provided to pregnant
women and their newborns. Although Perinatal mortality dramatically declined in developed
countries, the progress has been slow in resource poor settings where 99% of the mortality is
occurring and still births were not included in MDG’s. In resource limited countries like
Ethiopia, where perinatal mortality is still significant and the extent hasn’t been well known b/c
of low facility delivery and poor recording and under reporting.
Method:
Cross-sectional study was conducted in Shashemene Referral Hospital between February to
August 2016. The data were collected from logbooks and client cards (maternal and neonatal
cards) by using a structured data collection tool.
Results
A total of 380 cases was included in this analysis. The Perinatal mortality rate was 116 per 1000
total births, of which 86.4% were still births and 16.6% were early neonatal deaths. The
proportion of hospital perinatal death was 27.3%. Of the Perinatal deaths, 79.6% of them
occurred in mothers admitted with at least one obstetric and medical complication. Obstructed
labor, antepartum hemorrhage and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy accounted for more
than half of the Perinatal deaths. Lack of antenatal care follow up and labor duration of more
than 24 hours, obstructed labor and pregnancy induced hypertension were found to be
associated with perinatal mortality.
Conclusion
The Perinatal mortality rate observed was higher than other similar hospital based studies in
the country and more than twofold of the national estimate of perinatal mortality. Preventable
causes of Perinatal deaths like obstructed labor (which accounted for one third of the deaths),
hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and antepartum hemorrhage caused more than half of the
deaths. Lack of antenatal care follow up and labor duration of more than 24 hours, obstructed
labor and pregnancy induced hypertension were found to have a statistically significant
association with Perinatal mortality, which indicates poor utilization and/or provision of quality
antepartum and intrapartal cares to the mothers which requires further investigation and
effective intervention .
