Stillbirths including intrapartum timing: EN-BIRTH multi-country validation study
- PMID: 33765942
- PMCID: PMC7995570
- DOI: 10.1186/s12884-020-03238-7
Stillbirths including intrapartum timing: EN-BIRTH multi-country validation study
Abstract
Background: An estimated >2 million babies stillborn around the world each year lack visibility. Low- and middle-income countries carry 84% of the burden yet have the least data. Most births are now in facilities, hence routine register-recording presents an opportunity to improve counting of stillbirths, but research is limited, particularly regarding accuracy. This paper evaluates register-recorded measurement of hospital stillbirths, classification accuracy, and barriers and enablers to routine recording.
Methods: The EN-BIRTH mixed-methods, observational study took place in five hospitals in Bangladesh, Nepal and Tanzania (2017-2018). Clinical observers collected time-stamped data on perinatal care and birth outcomes as gold standard. To assess accuracy of routine register-recorded stillbirth rates, we compared birth outcomes recorded in labour ward registers to observation data. We calculated absolute rate differences and individual-level validation metrics (sensitivity, specificity, percent agreement). We assessed misclassification of stillbirths with neonatal deaths. To examine stillbirth appearance (fresh/macerated) as a proxy for timing of death, we compared appearance to observed timing of intrauterine death based on heart rate at admission.
Results: 23,072 births were observed including 550 stillbirths. Register-recorded completeness of birth outcomes was > 90%. The observed study stillbirth rate ranged from 3.8 (95%CI = 2.0,7.0) to 50.3 (95%CI = 43.6,58.0)/1000 total births and was under-estimated in routine registers by 1.1 to 7.3 /1000 total births (register: observed ratio 0.9-0.7). Specificity of register-recorded birth outcomes was > 99% and sensitivity varied between hospitals, ranging from 77.7-86.1%. Percent agreement between observer-assessed birth outcome and register-recorded birth outcome was very high across all hospitals and all modes of birth (> 98%). Fresh or macerated stillbirth appearance was a poor proxy for timing of stillbirth. While there were similar numbers of stillbirths misclassified as neonatal deaths (17/430) and neonatal deaths misclassified as stillbirths (21/36), neonatal deaths were proportionately more likely to be misclassified as stillbirths (58.3% vs 4.0%). Enablers to more accurate register-recording of birth outcome included supervision and data use.
Conclusions: Our results show these routine registers accurately recorded stillbirths. Fresh/macerated appearance was a poor proxy for intrapartum stillbirths, hence more focus on measuring fetal heart rate is crucial to classification and importantly reduction in these preventable deaths.
Keywords: Birth; Health management information systems; Hospital records; Maternal; Neonatal; Stillbirth; Survey; Validity.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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References
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- United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME). A Neglected Tragedy: The global burden of stillbirths. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund; 2020. https://data.unicef.org/resources/a-neglected-tragedy-stillbirth-estimat.... Accessed 12 Oct 2020.
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- UNICEF, World Health Organization, World Bank Group. Levels & trends in child mortality 2020. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund; 2020. https://www.unicef.org/media/79371/file/UN-IGME-child-mortality-report-2.... Accessed 14 Sep 2020.
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- United Nations. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development 2015. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld/publ.... Accessed 14 Sep 2020.
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