Infant, perinatal and maternal mortality

The Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) collects official statistics on infant, perinatal and maternal mortality from medical certificates of cause of death.

Infant mortality is the number of children who die in the first year of life per 1000 live births over a given period of time.

Infant mortality

Infant mortality is the number of children who die in the first year of life per 1000 live births over a given period of time.

Eurostat publishes comparable data on infant mortality rates for European countries (Eurostat: Infant mortality rates [demo_minfind]) 

Number of infant deaths

Number of children who died in the first year of life (up to 11 months and 30 days of age). This is made up of neonatal and post-neonatal mortality.

Neonatal mortality is most affected by both congenital diseases and health care during pregnancy, childbirth and the postnatal period. Infant mortality is also generally influenced by the socio-economic status of parents, living conditions and choices made during pregnancy and beyond. 

Perinatal mortality

Perinatal period is the period from 22 completed weeks of pregnancy (154 days, when weight of foetus is 500g, usually) to 7 completed days after birth (6 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes).

Perinatal mortality is the ratio between the number of stillborn children and live-born children who died during the first week of life and 1 000 live and stillborn children. Since 2017 foeticide (induced foetal death due to medical indications) are counted separately from stillbirth and these cases are not included in perinatal mortality.

Perinatal death is a death of a foetus or newborn during perinatal period. Perinatal deaths include dying of a foetus before the birth and during birth (stillborn), as well as dying of a newborn during the first week of life (early neonatal death).

Intrauterine hypoxia and asphyxia at birth are the most common causes of perinatal mortality. Intrauterine hypoxia occurs when the fetus is not provided with an adequate supply of oxygen. It can be caused by a variety of reasons, such as cord prolapse or obstruction, placental infarction, maternal diabetes mellitus and maternal smoking.

Maternal mortality

The deaths of women while pregnant or within 42 days after termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes. Relative maternal mortality is calculated per 100 000 live births.

The maternal mortality indicator excludes external causes of death: road accidents, violence and others.

Causes of maternal mortality are divided into:

• direct obstetric deaths – direct obstetric deaths are those resulting from obstetric complications of the pregnant state (pregnancy, labour and puerperium), from interventions, omissions, incorrect treatment, or from a chain of events resulting from any of the above.
• indirect obstetric deaths – indirect obstetric deaths are those resulting from previous existing disease or disease that developed during pregnancy and which was not due to direct obstetric causes, but which was aggravated by physiologic effects of pregnancy.

The maternal mortality ratio in Latvia is very wave-like and has no clear downward trend. The total number of births in Latvia is small and a single case has a significant impact on the overall rate.