Women after immediate admission equally often delivered on admission day and the day after (26.0% 33/127 each), women after delayed admission most commonly delivered the day after admission (39.3% 22/56).
77.6% (142/183) of women after IUFD diagnosis delivered within the first 3 days after admission. Whilst women with early signs of labor were more frequently admitted immediately (87.5% 14/16), neither maternal demographic and obstetric parameters, nor day of the week or presenting symptoms influenced the timing of hospital admission. Median gestational age of IUFD was 30 +3 (21 +0–41 +3) weeks. In total, 183 women were included of whom 69.4% (n = 127) were immediately admitted and 30.6% (n = 56) had delayed admission. We excluded all terminations of pregnancy and women presenting with acute symptoms on the day of IUFD diagnosis. This retrospective cohort study comprised all women who suffered a singleton IUFD ≥ 21 gestational weeks and delivered the stillborn at our tertiary referral center between 20. By this study, we aimed to gain an understanding of the impact of “immediate” (i.e., on the same day of IUFD diagnosis) versus “delayed” hospital admission (i.e., on the subsequent day or two days after IUFD diagnosis) on maternal and delivery outcome parameters.
The effect of timing of hospital admission for stillbirth delivery following late intrauterine fetal death (IUFD) has not yet been described.