[Current perinatal and infant mortality at Reunion Island]

The mortality rate is an indicator of public health related to social, economic and sanitary conditions. In 1990, the early neonatal and infant mortality rates published by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) for Reunion Island were surprisingly lower than those published for continental France, in spite of a less favourable socio-economic status. Therefore, we considered is useful to try to re-establish the true rates by means of a retrospective survey based first on the vitality and maturité criteria of the French Register Office, then on those of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Among all the childbirths registered in Reunion Island between January 1st and December 31st 1990, we collected the cases of stillbirths and neonatal deaths that occurred in hospital or at home. The vitality and maturity criteria were defined according to all clinical and para-clinical records available.

After an adjustment of the vitality criteria based on the medical files, the use of the French Register Office maturity criteria resulted in the following date: stillbirth rate 8.69% (versus 9.89), early neonatal mortality rate 3.88% (versus 2.65%), and infant mortality rate 8.12% (versus 6.7%). Then, using the WHO maturity criteria, we found the following rates: stillbirth 12.7%, early neonatal mortality 5.1%, perinatal mortality 17.74%, infant mortality 9.34%.

The non-observance of vitality criteria leads to a decrease of early neonatal mortality rate, and consequently of infant mortality rate. On the other hand, the WHO maturity criteria are either ignored or debated. Those two facts contribute to the publication of wrong still birth, early neonatal mortality and infant mortality rates. Therefore, the fetal-infant mortality rate seems to be more reliable than the infant mortality rate.