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Intraparturn and Neonatal Mortality in a Traditional Indigenous Community in Rural Guatemala

ABSTRACT. We identified high rates of intrapartum and neonatal mortality among children born in a traditional indigenous comm. unity in rural Guatemala. To examine the potential association of maternal characteristics and obstetric and newborn care practices with this mortality, we conducted a retrospective case–control study. Cases were infants born in 1986 and 1987 who died during birth or in the first month of life, as identified by civil records; for each case, the next child born who survived the first month of life was selected as control. In interviews with mothers of cases and controls standardized data were collected on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the mother, her general obstetric history, history of the pregnancy, labor, and delivery, condition and care of the infant at birth, and morbidity and treatments of the infant after birth. Sixty‐one cases and their controls were included in the study. Based on clinical condition at birth, we subcategorized cases into infants stillborn or dying in the first 24 hours of life (intrapartum cases) and those dying in the first month after day 1 (neonatal cases). Factors significantly associated with both subcategories of cases were maternal illiteracy, primagravity, failure to use “modern” prenatal care, and inter‐birth interval < 14 months. Intramuscular injection of oxytocin by the midwife during labor, and performance of ≥ 3 vaginal examinations by the midwife were each significantly associated only with the intrapartum subcategory of cases. Mother's estimate of infant size as “smaller than normal” was associated with neonatal, but not with intrapartum, cases. Reported clinical features of cases suggested birth asphyxia and/or trauma to be predominant among intrapartum cases, and sepsis to be the most common cause of neonatal mortality after day 1.