RESUMEN
The reasons for 186 medically indicated terminations of pregnancy, 178 stillbirths, and 126 neo-natal deaths were analysed by a multi-disciplinary team after a thorough enquiry into the social and medical context for the deaths or for the decision to interrupt the pregnancies. This was undertaken on the initiative of the regional technical consultative commission for enquiring into births, and according to a protocol that had already been partly used by a group studying the neonatal period in Ille and Vilaine. A comparison of the causes according to the type of death shows the value of following up these three indicators to the plan and appropriate policy for three weeks following delivery. A certain number of questions about definitions and classifications still have arisen.