Perinatal geography of Belgium.

The use of routinely collected perinatal data allows calculation of health indicators at regional levels. It helps the health managers in making decisions and provides etiological clues for epidemiology. The information is more easily assimilated with the use of maps. In Belgium, the rates of perinatal mortality, low-birthweight and preterm births vary widely between the districts. Southern districts maintain the highest rates of low-birthweight and preterm births. Even though these two factors account for most perinatal mortality cases, within 20 years, a disproportion of perinatal mortality rates between the north and the south of the country was progressively inversed to the disadvantage of the north. Advances in perinatology of some major services of the southern part may explain a good deal of this change. Discrepancies between low-birthweight and preterm rates in some districts may be explained by biomedical characteristics of ethnic groups concentrated in these areas.