Research priorities for stillbirth: process overview and results from UK Stillbirth Priority Setting Partnership : Editorial

Defective deep placentation has been associated with a spectrum of complications of pregnancy including preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction, preterm labor, preterm premature rupture of membranes, late spontaneous abortion, and abruptio placentae. The disease of the placental vascular bed that underpins these complications is commonly investigated with targeted biopsies. In this review, we critically evaluate the biopsy technique to summarize the salient types of defective deep placentation, and propose criteria for the classification of defective deep placentation into 3 types based on the degree of restriction of remodeling and the presence of obstructive lesions in the myometrial segment of the spiral arteries. Copyright © 2011 Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

To develop and test a new classification system for stillbirths to help improve understanding of the main causes and conditions associated with fetal death. Population based cohort study. West Midlands region. 2625 stillbirths from 1997 to 2003. Categories of death according to conventional classification methods and a newly developed system (ReCoDe, relevant condition at death). By the conventional Wigglesworth classification, 66.2% of the stillbirths (1738 of 2625) were unexplained. The median gestational age of the unexplained group was 237 days, significantly higher than the stillbirths in the other categories (210 days; P < 0.001). The proportion of stillbirths that were unexplained was high regardless of whether a postmortem examination had been carried out or not (67% and 65%; P = 0.3). By the ReCoDe classification, the most common condition was fetal growth restriction (43.0%), and only 15.2% of stillbirths remained unexplained. ReCoDe identified 57.7% of the Wigglesworth unexplained stillbirths as growth restricted. The size of the category for intrapartum asphyxia was reduced from 11.7% (Wigglesworth) to 3.4% (ReCoDe). The new ReCoDe classification system reduces the predominance of stillbirths currently categorised as unexplained. Fetal growth restriction is a common antecedent of stillbirth, but its high prevalence is hidden by current classification systems. This finding has profound implications for maternity services, and raises the question whether some hitherto "unexplained" stillbirths may be avoidable.

This article provides detailed guidelines for the implementation of systematic method for setting priorities in health research investments that was recently developed by Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI). The target audience for the proposed method are international agencies, large research funding donors, and national governments and policy-makers. The process has the following steps: (i) selecting the managers of the process; (ii) specifying the context and risk management preferences; (iii) discussing criteria for setting health research priorities; (iv) choosing a limited set of the most useful and important criteria; (v) developing means to assess the likelihood that proposed health research options will satisfy the selected criteria; (vi) systematic listing of a large number of proposed health research options; (vii) pre-scoring check of all competing health research options; (viii) scoring of health research options using the chosen set of criteria; (ix) calculating intermediate scores for each health research option; (x) obtaining further input from the stakeholders; (xi) adjusting intermediate scores taking into account the values of stakeholders; (xii) calculating overall priority scores and assigning ranks; (xiii) performing an analysis of agreement between the scorers; (xiv) linking computed research priority scores with investment decisions; (xv) feedback and revision. The CHNRI method is a flexible process that enables prioritizing health research investments at any level: institutional, regional, national, international, or global.