Perinatal mortality and associated morbidity

Perinatal mortality remains an important topic, with wide ranging coverage in the literature. I have considered three main themes: preexisting risk factors, clinical management, and perinatal mortality reviews. Three major studies have identified a wide range of risk factors for perinatal death. Different inclusion criteria may be responsible for some of the apparent inconsistencies between study findings, but unravelling the complex web of interrelated factors remains a major epidemiologic challenge. Recent studies of clinical management highlight the role of the delivery of health care in determining outcome. However, they also underline the difficulties of assessing contrasting approaches to clinical management in this field. There is a welcome continuing impetus to develop the systematic review of perinatal death as an indicator of effectiveness in the delivery of maternity care.