[A consideration of "avoidable deaths". A study on early neonatal mortality in Ille-et-Vilaine from 1972 to 1977 (author's transl)].

The authors have made a study of 514 case notes of early neonatal deaths that occurred in Ille-et-Viliane from the 1st January 1972 to the 1st January 1977 among a total of 61,400 deliveries. They had 3 objects in mind: 1. To know what mechanisms had produced these deaths. In order to do this they divided their observations into 4 groups according to what seemed to them at the time to be the primary cause of the death, namely a lethal congenital malformation, a complication occurring in pregnancy, an accident that happened during the delivery, prematurity and dysmaturity. 2. To establish the importance of what is now called "avoidable deaths" and the conditions under which they were produced. 3. To show the means and methods that might eventually reduce this mortality after studying these results. On the conclusion of this study it seems to them that this improvement can here and now be obtained not so much by new procedures as by better monitoring of the state of pregnancy and the puerperium, and by more attention to the classical rules and more sensible use of the numerous techniques that already exist today.