[Fetal death toward the end of pregnancy]

This study is on 171 late fetal deaths. These arose from 508 cases histories that the Group for the Study of Neonatology in Rennes brought together when they were conducting a systematic enquiry into perinatal mortality in Ille-and-Vilaine. These concerned events that occurred from the 37th week of pregnancy onwards and had nothing to do with labour. Their study should make it possible to understand better the importance and the details of fetal deaths occurring in the last weeks of pregnancy. Four facts can be established: 1. The number of fetal deaths occurring at the end of pregnancy seems to be higher than had been thought. They represent 38.39% of fetal deaths occurring independent of labour which the Study Group have registered. 2. In most cases they were unexpected. Their discovery was a surprise. 3. Almost half were due to specific causes: accidents to do with the umbilical cord (21 cases); going past biological term (53 cases) following a theory that the authors suggest should be used in place of the commonly held concept of post-maturity, and based solely on the duration of the pregnancy. 4. In order to reduce this perinatal mortality, which is avoidable in many cases, it is important that the pregnancy should be monitored much more thoroughly at its end and this requires, among other things, that the patients themselves should participate.