Abstract:

Perinatal period is a very important critical phase in life as perinatal death include still birth from 28th week of gestation age and 28 days after life which is called neonatal deaths. Perinatal mortality is a major challenge in most of the developing countries such as Tanzania. In 2004 the world health organization estimated that 3 million stillbirths and 2.8 million early neonatal deaths all over the world(1). To determine the prevalence and factors influencing perinatal mortality, at Nyamagana Mwanza hospital.

The study was hospital based, a retrospective documentary study was conducted where by 91 files of perinatal deaths to inpatient medical records at Nyamagana mwanza Hospital, in 2023 and meet criteria were selected in the study as a sample size and a convenience sampling (availability sampling) procedure was used to get this sample size, data cleaning and analysis was achieved by using a computer program which was Epi info computer program version 7
The most significant findings of the study were that. Several maternal, obstetric, health system and socioeconomic factors and neonatal conditions indirectly contributed to perinatal deaths. Inadequate nutrition and poor maternal education especially during Ante natal care, have been linked to the occurrence of stillbirth and neonatal deaths maternal condition such as Antepartum hemorrhage, diabetes mellitus, and malaria in pregnancy, while obstetrics condition such as gestation age, while health system involves poor management of second stage of labor where by led to many neonatal complications like birth asphyxia.

Furthermore, according to this study, the prevalence was also deduced and it was found that the prevalence of perinatal mortality at Nyamagana Mwanza Hospital is 1.32%, accessed in 2023.

The purpose of the study was to determine the prevalence and factors influencing perinatal mortality at Nyamagan Mwanza Referral Hospital. The study results yield valuable information and we hope that relevant authorities to improve delivery of health care to antenatal mothers, including educating women even just before they conceive and the whole time of their pregnancy concerning indicators of poor outcomes of pregnancy, such as early visit to the hospital whenever it happens that a mother got any danger signs, also for the health care providers proper monitoring of the of all stages of labor until delivery.

Based on the results of the study I recommend that health care providers should educate the whole population about how to achieve safety pregnancy outcome such as on good nutrition, ANC attendance, as well the importance of hospital delivery, proper monitoring of the stages of labor so as to prevent poor outcome. Since my study was retrospective documentary, I recommend proper documentation of patient`s particulars from the time of admission to the time of discharge, including details of the mother and details of the newborns so as to facilitate easy collections of information.

Moreover, the responsible ministry and other stake holders should conduct more researches by involving large population so as to determine variety parameters such as prevalence of perinatal mortality or to identify the factors influencing it. Least but not last, I recommend that for case of Intra uterine fatal death, health care providers should take as many as possible investigation so as to find out what might be the cause of intra uterine fetal death.