[Perinatal deaths in the county of Ostfold 1989-97]

All perinatal deaths in the county of Ostfold during the nine year period 1989-1997 were assessed by perinatal audit. Each death was allocated to one of two groups: satisfactory or suboptimal perinatal care. The classification of the causes of death includes fetal, obstetrical and neonatal conditions. The audit is supplemented with some epidemiological data. It was concluded that the standard of care was suboptimal in a fourth of the evaluated cases (52 out of 212). Misdiagnosed or ignored growth retardation and inadequate reaction to information of reduced fetal movements, were the two most frequent examples of suboptimal care. Perinatal mortality was 6.7 per thousand. The results of this audit indicate that it should be possible to improve the quality of perinatal care by intensifying the postgraduate training of the personnel involved. Pregnant woman should contribute by refraining from smoking. The national perinatal committees should aim at establishing a common standard for perinatal audits which would allow tenable comparisons of audit results and national surveys.