INFECTIONS AND PERINATAL-MORTALITY

Over the last forty years there has been an apparent decrease in the number of perinatal deaths due primarily to infection, in the developed countries. Clair (1970) has compared the incidence of infection in the British Birth Surveys of 1958 and 1970: There was a similar incidence of extrapulmonary infection (1-2%) and a reduction in pulmonary infection from 7-0% to 1-2% in the first-week deaths. These estimations however are based on primary necropsy diagnoses but the incidence of infection as a secondary diagnosis is also of interest when trying to determine the overall picture in a newborn necropsy series. The accuracy of any estimate of the incidence and type of infection depends not only on adequate histological assessment of inflammation but should also include microbiological evidence as well. In this study we have tried to determine the evidence for infection in a consecutive series of newborn necropsies performed during the last decade at one maternity hospital supplementing histological findings with routine postmortem microbiological investigations. © 1979 Oxford University Press.