Stillbirth trends by maternal socioeconomic status among a large
internal migrant population in Shenzhen China over 10 years: a
retrospective study
Abstract
Abstract Objectives To estimate the stillbirth rate at 28 or more
gestational weeks and associated maternal socioeconomic characteristics
among a large internal migrant population in China. Design Retrospective
study Setting Shenzhen Birth Registry Database Population or Sample All
births Baoan, Shenzhen from January 2010 and December 2019 Methods The
associations between stillbirth rate and maternal socioeconomic
characteristics were assessed using logistic regression. Spearman’s rank
correlation analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between
economic status of maternal birthplace and stillbirth rate. Main Outcome
Measures Stillbirth rates by maternal socioeconomic characteristics.
Results An overall stillbirth rate of 4.5 per 1000 births was estimated
in a total of 492,184 births in our final analysis. Migrant women had
lower maternal socioeconomic status including younger age at delivery,
lower education attainment, lower economic status of birthplace,
inadequate prenatal care, and higher risk of stillbirth. The stillbirth
rate varied by region of maternal birthplace, from 4.1 per 1000 births
in women from East China to 5.7 per 1000 births from West China. The GDP
per capita of maternal birthplace was strongly correlated with
stillbirth rate (Spearman’s coefficient -0.875, p<0.001).
Conclusions Large disparities in stillbirth rate existed between migrant
and local population and among regions of maternal birthplace in China.
Targeting strategies towards migrant women based on maternal birthplace
are needed to further reduce burden of stillbirth. Tweetable abstract
Stillbirth rate among internal migrant women in Shenzhen was inversely
correlated with economic status of maternal birthplace. Keywords
Stillbirth rate, socioeconomic status, internal migrant population,
maternal birthplace