You have full text access to this OnlineOpen article

Variation in rates of postterm birth in Europe: reality or artefact?

  1. J Zeitlin1,*,
  2. B Blondel1,
  3. S Alexander3,
  4. G Bréart2,
  5. PERISTAT Group1

Article first published online: 6 JUL 2007

DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2007.01328.x

Issue

BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Volume 114, Issue 9, pages 1097–1103, September 2007

Additional Information

How to Cite

Zeitlin, J., Blondel, B., Alexander, S., Bréart, G. and PERISTAT Group (2007), Variation in rates of postterm birth in Europe: reality or artefact?. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 114: 1097–1103. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2007.01328.x

Author Information

  1. 1

    INSERM, UMR S149, Epidemiological Research Unit on Perinatal and Women’s Health, Paris, France

  2. 2

    Hôpital Tenon, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, Paris, France

  3. 3

    Reproductive Health Unit, School of Public Health, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

*Dr J Zeitlin, INSERM U149, Site St Vincent de Paul, 82 av. Denfert Rochereau, 75014 Paris, France. Email zeitlin@cochin.inserm.fr

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 6 JUL 2007
  2. Article first published online: 6 JUL 2007
  3. Accepted 5 February 2007. Published OnlineEarly 6 July 2007.

SEARCH

SEARCH BY CITATION

ARTICLE TOOLS

View Full Article (HTML) Get PDF (122K)

Keywords:

  • Gestational age distribution;
  • perinatal health indicators;
  • postterm births

Objective  To compare rates of postterm birth in Europe.

Design  Analysis of data from vital statistics, birth registers, and national birth samples collected for the PERISTAT project.

Setting  Thirteen European countries.

Population  All live births or representative samples of births for the year 2000 or most recent year available.

Methods  Comparison of national and regional rates of postterm birth. Other indicators (birthweight, deliveries with a non-spontaneous onset and mortality) were used to assess the validity of postterm rates.

Main outcome measures  The proportion of births at 42 completed weeks of gestation or later.

Results  Postterm rates varied greatly, from 0.4% (Austria, Belgium) to over 7% (Denmark, Sweden) of births. Higher postterm rates were associated with a greater proportion of babies with birthweight 4500 g or more. Fetal and early neonatal mortality rates were higher among postterm births than among births at 40 weeks. Countries with higher proportions of births with a nonspontaneous onset of labour had lower postterm birth rates. The shapes of the gestational-age distributions at term varied. In some countries, there was a sharp cutoff in deliveries at 40 weeks, while elsewhere this occurred at 41 weeks.

Conclusions  These results suggest that practices for managing pregnancies continuing beyond term differ in Europe and raise questions about the health and other impacts in countries with markedly high or low postterm rates. Some variability in these rates may also be due to methods for determining gestational age, which has broader implications for international comparisons of gestational age, including rates of postterm and preterm births and small-for-gestational-age newborns.

View Full Article (HTML) Get PDF (122K)