Intrauterine fetal death

摘要

The aetiology of IUFD is extremely heterogeneous. The use of growth centiles customised to maternal characteristics has shown that among the group of unexplained IUFD there are is large proportion of fetuses where poor growth is implicated. This finding demonstrates that fetal undergrowth is associated with many unexplained losses, although the pathological mechanism remains unclear. The causes can broadly be divided into fetal, maternal and placental (Box 1). An understanding of these allows us to better direct investigations.