title: Identification of causes of stillbirth through autopsy and placental examination reports.
abstract: The autopsy and placental histopathological examination results following fetal deaths were analyzed retrospectively in an attempt to explain the stillbirths that occurred from 1996 to 2010 at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Szeged. One hundred and forty fetal deaths were recorded in that period, i.e. a rate of 4.69 stillbirths per 1000 deliveries. The postmortem examination provided the exact cause of the fetal death in 57.9% of the cases. The most common causes were a placental insufficiency (46.9%) and an umbilical cord complication (25.9%). In the first half of the third trimester, a placental insufficiency predominated as the cause of stillbirth, whereas mainly umbilical cord complications occurred around term. In spite of the availability of the autopsy and histopathological examination results, the proportion of unexplained stillbirths in our sample was relatively high. A considerable proportion of stillbirth cases could probably be prevented by more effective screening of a placental insufficiency.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pásztor
authors.forename: Attila
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Keresztúri
authors.forename: Zoltan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Kozinszky
authors.forename: Attila
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pál
mesh_terms: D001344:Autopsy; D002423:Cause of Death / Q000639:trends*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary / Q000453:epidemiology; D010920:Placenta / Q000473:pathology*; D010922:Placenta Diseases / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D050497:Stillbirth / Q000453:epidemiology*