Indices of birthweight-specific perinatal mortality in Germany from 1985 to 1999

A study of the trends in German perinatal data over the 15 years from 1985 to 1999 is complicated by the fact that the numbers from 1991 onwards represent the data for reunified Germany, whereas the numbers before 1991 give the data for former West Germany. The latest figure for the number of livebirths in Germany was 770744 in 1999 with a rate of low birthweight of 6.5% and a perinatal mortality rate of 0.62%. A constant increase in numbers of low-birthweight infants was observed, rising from 33531 in 1985 to 41145 in 1990 and from 47863 in 1991 to 50294 in 1999. This rise in low-weight births concerned mainly infants of <1500 g. In parallel, there was a decrease in early neonatal and infant mortality rates in all subgroups of low-birthweight infants except for the extremely small infants of <500 g where no clear tendency was observed over 15 years.