[Perinatal care in the Marche region 1983. Results of an epidemiologic study]

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to offer a significant picture of perinatal care in the Region Marche. Natality, perinatal and neonatal mortality of 1983 were analysed with reference to birth weight. The obstetric and neonatal services were subdivided, according to the levels of reproductive medical care, in level III, level II, level I and sublevel. The transfers of newborn to the hospital with a service of neonatal pathology or with a neonatal intensive cure unit were taken into account. Our epidemiological data were compared with epidemiological data of Sweden in 1979 and, for very low birth weight infants, with epidemiological data of the Region Friuli Venezia Giulia in 1980. The results have shown the excessive number of obstetric services in the Region Marche, the lack of centralization of risk pregnancies, the frequent transfers of sick newborns, the positive relationship between transferred infants and a greater neonatal mortality in the services of special and intensive neonatal care. The study indicates that it is suitable a program of regionalization of obstetric and neonatal services for an early individualization and in utero referrals of risk pregnancies, for a planned on regional basis transport of sick infants.