A survey of 673 consecutive Papua New Guinea parturients carried out at the Port Moresby General Hospital between May and June 1990 showed that socioeconomic and educational factors played a part in predicting perinatal death. Mothers who have previously experienced a perinatal death are more likely to experience a second one.
PIP: During May-June, 1990, physicians surveyed all postpartum women before they were discharged from Port Moresby General Hospitals of Papua New Guinea to determine whether socioeconomic and educational factors contributed to perinatal death as well as to low birth weight. Most of the 673 women were of southern origin (70%), currently married (97.2%), 20-35 years old (79.5%), and had 1-4 children prior to the index birth (57.4%). 4.6% had experienced at least 1 perinatal death before the index infant. The perinatal death rate among the index births (676 births) was 29.6/1000 births (stillbirth rate = 22.2/1000 births and neonatal mortality rate = 7.4/1000). The main cause of perinatal death were antepartum hemorrhage, prematurity and respiratory distress syndrome, syphilis, and placental insufficiency associated with intrauterine growth retardation. The stepwise logistic regression analysis indicated that village/urban slum residence, prenatal care, and previous perinatal death were significantly associated with perinatal death. The odds ratios of village/urban slum residence (p = .001), lack of prenatal care in index pregnancy (p = .002) were 5.13, 4.18, and 5,38, respectively. Predictors of low birth weight were village/urban slum residence (OR = 2.67; p .001), nulliparity before index birth (OR = 2.29; p .001), and previous perinatal death (OR = 2.87; p .05). These findings showed that mothers who have previously suffered from a perinatal death are more likely to again experience a perinatal death.