ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2017. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution,  
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ISDS 2016 Conference Abstracts

Rates and causes of stillbirth in a demographic 
surveillance site in Karachi, Pakistan
Muhammad Imran Nisar*, Muhammad Ilyas, Komal Naeem, Urooj Fatima, yasir Shafiq 
and Fyezah Jehan
Pediatrics, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan

Objective
To determine burden, timing and causes of stillbirths in a 

prospective cohort of pregnant from a low income community setting 
in peri urban Karachi

Introduction
Stillbirth remained a neglected issue absent from mention in 

Millennium Development Goals. An estimated 2.6 million babies are 
stillborn every year withhighest rate in Pakistan, 43.1 stillbirths/1000 
births. There is lack of good quality prospective population based data 
in Pakistanregarding burden, timing and causes of stillbirths

Methods
From Jan – Dec 2012, Community Helath Workers (CHWs) 

identified pregnant women through 3 monthly household visits.
Pregnant women were then followed up till end of their pregnancy. 

In case of a stillbirth, a detailed verbal autopsy (VA) interview was 
undertaken 2 weeks after the outcome by a research assistant. VA 
forms were then reviewed by 2 independent Physicians who assigned 
a cause for stillbirth. In case of disagreement, VA form was reviewed 
by a third physician. A consensus between two physicians was 
required for a definitive cause.

Results
There were a total of 273 stillbirths (3.04%) reported. Stillbirth 

rate was 30.7/1000 births. Distribution of antepartum and intrapartum 
stillbirths was 83% and 17%. Three most common causes of stillbirths 
included pregnancy induced Hypertension(37%), antepartum 
hemorrhage (10%) and obstructed labor(6%) (fig. 1).

Conclusions
We have reported a high burden of stillbirths that take place 

during the intrapartum period. This reemphasizes need for good 
quality antenatal care in these settings. Appropriate measure needs 
to be taken targeting most common causes of stillbirths, focusing on 
improved antepartum health care facilities

Keywords
Still birth; Burden; Low income countries

*Muhammad Imran Nisar
E-mail: imran.nisar@aku.edu

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 9(1):e184, 2017