The purpose of our study was to analyze the structure of perinatal fetus mortality among 13-18 years old women.
Subject matter and methods of our research were as follows. 192 cases of perinatal fetus death in very young women, who had given birth at the maternity homes №10 and №15 of the city of Saint Petersburg, Russia in the last 20 years, were retrospectively analyzed. There were 83, 35 and 56 cases of antenatal, intranatal and postnatal death of fetuses, respectively.
Results and discussion: our analysis showed that asphyxia (36.9%), intrauterine fetus infections (35.4%) and congenital abnormalities (18.8%) were the top three causes of perinatal fetus death among young women. These were followed by birth trauma (6.1%), pneumonia (2.2%) and hemolytic disease (2.0%). The frequency of asphyxia causing perinatal death was not constant: it was 45.7% in the antenatal period and 19.4% in the postnatal period. Opposite data was obtained during studies of intrauterine infection causing perinatal death of fetuses and newborns. It was the highest (53.6%) in the postnatal period. Congenital abnormalities causing fetus death were the highest (7.2%) and the lowest (3.6%) in the antenatal and postnatal periods, respectively. Intranatal birth trauma led to the death of newborns in 7.5% of cases, whereas consequences of the postnatal birth trauma - in 14.3%. Hemolytic disease caused fetus death in the antenatal period in 4.8% of cases.
Considering implications of the age issues for perinatal fetus mortality, it is necessary to point out that intrauterine infection was the number one cause of fetus death among 13-15 years old women. It remained the highest in both antenatal (4.8%) and postnatal (3.6%) periods.
Asphyxia was the main cause of the perinatal loss (21.7%) among 16-17 year-olds. At the same time, in that age group, generalized intrauterine infections (5.7%) were the main source of fetus death in the early neonatal period. The most frequently occurring cause of fetus death among 18 year-olds was also asphyxia (20.5%), however, 41.2% of death cases that took place in the first seven days after the birth were due to generalized infection.
Based on the above information, the following conclusions can be drawn. For all age groups,
it is of paramount importance to control influence of infections as it was number one cause of perinatal mortality among young women. Therefore, preventive measures against perinatal mortality among young mothers should include sanitation of infection sources.
The article is admitted to the International Scientific Conference « Section of young scientists, students and specialists», Seyshely, 2007 May 10-17; came to the editorial office on 31.03.07