Abstract:

A review was made of the clini-cal history and postmortem diagno-sis of 300 fetus and neonate dea-ths as determined by autopsy.The highest proportion of deaths was noted in fetuses and neonates who died of infection. Intrauterine anoxia ranked second,malformation ranked third,abnormal pulmona-ry function ranked fourth and toxemia ranked fifth.The majority of deaths from infection was pneumonia.It account for 26.69% of the 300 cases analyzed.An acc-urate diagnosis and proper treatm-ent are important in reducing the mortality rate of perinatal pneumo-nia. The pneumonia was classified histologically into acute diffuse pneumonia(congenital aspiration pneumonia),bronchopneumonia, interstitial pneumonia and miscella-neous cases of pneumonia.Experi-mental study of the pneumonia of fetal rabbit demonstrated that pneu-monia is of ten associated with in-flammation of the placenta and cord. Frozen Section of the placenta and cord is necessary for an early diag-nosis of pneumonia.