Causes of stillbirth
Mapping of the causes of stillbirth to the ICD10-PM classification system revealed a total of 23 unique causes of stillbirths. Overall, maternal categories of causes of stillbirth (M1-M5) had higher frequencies compared to foetal causes and were thus used to present data. This may be explained by the fact that there are only five maternal categories of causes of stillbirth and thirteen foetal categories in the ICD-10-PM classification system. Of these, “complications of placenta, cord and membrane with no foetal cause (M1)”, “maternal medical and surgical conditions with no foetal cause (M4)”, and “other foetal cause with no maternal condition identified (M5U6)” were the most common causes of stillbirth in our pooled analyses.