Determining the cause of stillbirth in Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

This evaluation of stillbirth in a busy, tertiary care hospital in Kumasi, Ghana provides crucial insight into the high volume of stillbirth in Ghana as well as its medical causes. The study demonstrated the high rate of stillbirth attributed to hypoxic intrapartum events, placental abruption, pre-eclampsia, and unspecified bacterial infections. Yet, our rate of unexplained stillbirths underscores the need for a stillbirth classification system that thoughtfully integrates the needs and limitations of low-resource settings as unexplained stillbirth rates are a common indicator of the effectiveness of a classification system.