North Carolina Fetal and Neonatal Death Study I—Study Design and Some Preliminary Results

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The design of a cooperative perinatal mortality study is discussed. All perinatal deaths and a sample of surviving infants born in participating hospitals are included. The results of the study were analyzed and tested by contingency chi-square and analysis of covariance. Some of the significant factors in death, after adjusting for several covariables are: (1) lower educational levels of mothers; (2) older and younger mothers; (3) long and short birth intervals; (4) length of gestation. Some factors which were not significant after adjustment for important covariables are: (1) mother''s diet score; (2) parity; (3) height of mother; (4) prenatal care. Among control infants only, length of gestation data based on date of last menstrual period are more variable for lower education groups than for higher ones. A possible explanation is that the date of last menstrual period is less reliable for the lower education groups. The factors of race, parity, previous perinatal death, socioeconomic class and gestation period account for much of the variation in birth weight of fetal and neonatal deaths but relatively little of the variation in birth weight of those who survive the neonatal period. The experience in this study suggests that in similar studies more use be made of medical social workers and nutritionists and that the dissimilarities between perinatal deaths among premature infants and premature survivors be studied more intensively.

This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit: