Abstract The perinatal period is characterised by the fundamental status transition of birth. Surrounding this transition is a period of a few months where choices are being made about life and death, where social disparities in morbidity and mortality are magnified, where later life health outcome have their origin, where abundant data is collected, and where bodies are being subjected to medical, legal, and political scrutiny and intervention. Demographers have started to untangle this dense transitional period with a recent push towards studying cohorts as they navigate the challenges surrounding parturition. We welcome all submissions which anchor their analyses in the time surrounding birth. Possible topics include gestational age analyses of perinatal mortality, perinatal life tables, medical interventions and trade-offs between fetal and infant mortality/morbidity, the risks associated with the transition of birth (“birth-hump”) for foetus, newborn and parent, mortality selection surrounding birth, the perinatal origins of later life health, social stratification of perinatal morbidity/mortality, or methodological aspects of perinatal population analysis.

Presenters

• Payal Hathi: the changing relationship between stillbirth and early neonatal mortality
• Alison Gemmill: racial/ethnic differences in the relationship between maternal age and stillbirth risk
• Tim Bruckner: selection in utero & the black survival advantage
• Haley Comfort: global, regional, and national stillbirths in 204 countries