Life table analysis of infant mortality and feto-infant mortality distributed on causes of death in Denmark 1983-1987.

The survival function of 263,322 singletons of the 1983-1987 Danish birth cohorts (262,159 liveborn and 1163 stillborn babies) with mortality distributed on functional groups of underlying causes of death is presented in two graphic forms on the basis of Kaplan-Meier estimates. About half of all first-day deaths in liveborn babies occurred during the first 4 hours. More than half of all first-week deaths happened during the first day. More than half of all deaths from 31 weeks to 76 weeks after the first day of the last menstrual period (LMP) were either fetal deaths prior to the onset of labour unexplained by fetal factors or unexplained sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) deaths. Graphic presentation of feto-infant mortality distributed on functional cause-of-death groups improved the expression of the relative contribution and timing of the different causes of deaths. Despite a high autopsy rate and a uniform coding practice the distribution on causes of deaths from register data should be interpreted with caution. Full use of the feto-infant approach is only achieved with data which include late abortions. Thus the feto-infant approach is of special interest in countries which have registers of live births and fetal deaths from week 22 of gestation or earlier. The integration of the life table approach and analysis of underlying causes of deaths should be further explored as a way of utilizing vital statistic databases for the evaluation of perinatal care.