[The analysis of the causes of deaths involving fetuses, neonates and infants in the autopsy material from the Chair and Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Łódź, in the years 2000-2010].

The aim of this study was the comparison of causes of deaths of fetuses, neonates and infants based on the autopsy reports taken from the Chair and Department of Forensic Medicine, Medical University of Łódź, in the years 2000-2010, and especially establishing what the most common causes of death occurred in this age group. We evaluated 94 autopsy reports of such children from this period. It turned out that the most frequent causes of death were pneumonia in neonates delivered at term and sepsis (usually due to hospital infection) in premature neonates. Other common causes of death were trauma and violent asphyxia (smothering, or choking or positional asphyxia).