The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance network investigated 8,500 deaths among stillbirths and children under five in seven high-mortality countries using minimally invasive tissue sampling, laboratory testing, and verbal autopsy. Stillbirths were predominantly attributed to perinatal asphyxia or hypoxia (79.1%), frequently with maternal hypertensive disorders, placental abnormalities, and chorioamnionitis. The findings demonstrate how laboratory confirmation and standardised investigation methods identify specific preventable causes that conventional vital registration and verbal autopsy alone cannot capture.
Why it is interesting: Reveals how cause-of-death methodology changes attribution patterns and precision in high-mortality settings where most child deaths occur.