The Correlation Between Stillbirth and Related Risk Factors: A Case-Control Study

Stillbirth is one of the unfavorable consequences of pregnancy. Generally, the true causes of fetal death are complicated and difficult to accurately identify.

The present study was aimed to identify risk factors for stillbirth among mothers referring to health centers of Hormozgan province, Iran.

This case-control study was conducted in 12 cities of Hormozgan province in 2015. The samples were randomly selected among those referring to the health centers of Hormozgan province by cluster sampling. Required data were collected by using a researcher-made questionnaire comprised of demographic characteristics of the mother pregnancy and delivery. The univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to measure the correlation between variables within a significance level of 5%. Data analysis was performed using SPSS, version 21.

A total of 825 mothers were recruited and assigned into two groups, experimental and control groups. There were 403 mothers with a history of stillbirth in the experimental group, and the control group was comprised of 422 mothers with a healthy live birth. The average age of the participants in the experimental and control groups were 27.68 ± 6.4 and 26.96 ± 5.4 years, respectively. Most of the mothers (> 90%) in both groups were housewives and most mothers in the case group (37%) were illiterate, whereas the majority of controls (43%) had a university education. The odds of stillbirth among mothers older than 35 years was 2.33 times higher than other mothers [OR: 2.33, 95% CI (1.287 - 4.246)]. The odds of stillbirth among mothers with a history of stillbirth was 10 times higher than those with no stillbirth history [OR: 10.1, 95% CI (2.846 - 35.973)].

The findings of this paper show that the fetal death is associated with maternal age, maternal education, maternal area of living, history of stillbirth in previous pregnancies and history of abortion in previous pregnancies. The results of this study may help to conduct future research effectively, and help supervisors and policymakers make evidence-based operational decisions.