Prevalence of Perinatal Deaths in a Tertiary Care Hospital of Nepal

INTRODUCTION: Perinatal mortality indicates quality of maternal and neonatal care and is high in Nepal. This study was conducted to find out the prevalence of perinatal deaths in a tertiary care center. METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from July 2017 to June 2018 at KIST Medical College and Teaching Hospital. Details of each perinatal death were filled in predesigned proforma from hospital in-patient records within 24 hours of perinatal death. The total of 1088 cases were selected for the study and convenience sampling was done. Statistical analysis was done with Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 17.0. RESULTS: Prevalence of perinatal death is 16 (1.46%) out of 1095 births. In the same way, perinatal mortality rate, stillbirth rate and early neonatal mortality rate were calculated and found to be 14.61 per 1000 births, 8.21 per 1000 births and 6.44 per 1000 live births respectively. Preterm neonates constituted of 71.4% of early neonatal deaths. CONCLUSIONS: Perinatal mortality rate was 50% lower than that of national survey, however comparable with study at another tertiary care center at Kathmandu. Stillbirth and prematurity contributed significantly to perinatal mortality. Provision of good antenatal surveillance, identification of high risk pregnancies and good neonatal care to preterm neonates would be required to reduce perinatal mortality.