Abstract

Perinatal deaths include stillbirths and infant deaths within the first week of life. Monitoring perinatal deaths has been advocated for by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This includes identifying and reporting on perinatal deaths to see if any deaths were preventable. This can be helpful to improve care for future pregnancies. The main aim of this paper is to describe how we will search the literature to identify standardised tools that are used to review perinatal deaths in middle- to high-income countries. Review tools might include checklists, forms, frameworks or other structured documents used to review perinatal deaths. If found, the structure and content of each review tool will be examined, and we will see if they have a section to identify preventable factors in perinatal deaths. A detailed search of the literature will identify articles and published and unpublished studies that describe the use of perinatal death review tools. The authors will use a set list of criteria to see if tools are suitable to include in this study. The findings from this study may help to identify the best way to review perinatal deaths that happen in maternity units in middle- or high-income countries.