Abstract: 206 cases of perinatal death from 1984 to 1987 were analysed. The perinatal mortality rate was 17.7%. Autopsy was performed for 168 cases and the antopsy rate Was 81.8%. The clinical diagnosis was found to coincide with autopsy findings in 90.7% of cases. The causes of death appeared to be hypoxia, malformatiou, respiratory diseases and intrauterine growth retardation. The perinatal death rate in breech delivery was 18 times than that in vertex delivery. It inicates that the correction of breech presentation in antenatal period is of importance. If more CS are adopted, less perinatal death will be observed for breech delivery. Among 30 cases of stillbirth, 10 cases were diagnosed as malformation, 50% of which being N.T.D. Based on our studies, we came to the coaelusion that an early N.T.D. perinatal diagnosis in second trimester of pregnancy is very important for the lowering of fetal death.

Key words: perinatal period, fetal death, stillbirth