anomalies in the definitions
Last reviewed 01/2018
There are many discrepancies in the definitions used for classifying perinatal mortality:
- gestational age may be uncertain with stillbirths
- the time of delivery of a stillbirth is often not the time of death
- stillbirth is deemed to be from 24 weeks only, however live birth can occur as early as 23 weeks; 23 week gestation babies who show signs of life and subsequently die are early neonatal deaths; the same baby who is not alive when born is not included in the tally.
- there is a grey area between livebirth and abortion at very early gestational ages