• Ethiopia is one of the fast track sub-Saharan African countries in reducing under-five mortality. However, the reduction in neonatal and perinatal mortality continues to be a major challenge, and with a rate of 33 deaths per 1000 births, Ethiopia is one of the countries with the highest perinatal mortality rate in the world.
• It is an indicator of the social, economic and environmental conditions in which mother lives, including maternal health care utilization.
• Perinatal mortality is the sum of stillbirth (fetal death) and early neonatal death which is the death of a live newborn before the age of seven completed days.
• This section shows the prevalence of perinatal mortality rate by background characteristics in Ethiopia.

Method

Data Source:
Ethiopian Demographic Health Survey (EDHS) 2000,2005,2011 and 2016 dataset.
Coverage:

Population base: Pregnancies of seven or more months to women age 15–49 at time of survey.
Time period: Five-year period preceding the survey.
Calculations:
Perinatal mortality rate = stillbirth rate  +  early neonatal death rate
Where,
NPSMD= Number of Pregnancies of More Than Seven Months Durations

\[Stillbirth rate = {number of stillbirth \over NPSMD }*1000\]

\[Early Neonatal Death Rate= { Number of Early Neonatal Death \over NPSMD}*1000\]

Key Findings

• Perinatal mortality rate declined from 52 to 33 deaths per 1,000 all births from 2000 to 2016.
• Perinatal mortality rate for the women age 20-29 and 40-49 were 28 and 63 deaths per 1,000 pregnancies in 2016 respectively. It shows that perinatal mortality rate among children born to women age 40-49 is more than twice as high as for women age 20-29.