Prevalence of Perinatal Deaths in A Tertiary Care Hospital of Nepal

Introduction: Perinatal mortality indicates quality of maternal and neonatal care and is high inNepal. This study was conducted to find out the prevalence of perinatal deaths in a tertiary carecenter. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from July 2017 to June 2018 at KISTMedical College and Teaching Hospital. Details of each perinatal death were filled in predesignedproforma from hospital in-patient records within 24 hours of perinatal death. The total of 1088 caseswere selected for the study and convenience sampling was done. Statistical analysis was done withStatistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 17.0). Results: Out of 1088 births selected for the study, there were 16 cases of perinatal deaths. Hence,the prevalence of the perinatal deaths in KIST Medical College and Teaching Hospital is found to be1.47%. In the same way, perinatal mortality rate, stillbirth rate and early neonatal mortality rate werecalculated and found to be 14.61 per 1000 births, 8.21 per 1000 births and 6.44 per 1000 live birthsrespectively. Preterm neonates constituted of 71.4% of early neonatal deaths. Conclusions: Perinatal mortality rate was 50% lower than that of national survey, however comparablewith study at another tertiary care center at Kathmandu. Stillbirth and prematurity contributedsignificantly to perinatal mortality. Provision of good antenatal surveillance, identification of highrisk pregnancies and good neonatal care to preterm neonates would be required to reduce perinatalmortality.