Non-infectious risk factors for intrapartum stillbirth in a swine farm in the North of Vietnam

Abstract

Background and Aim: Stillbirth causes considerable loss to the pig farming industry. Methods aimed at reducing stillbirth should base on the understanding of risk factors for intrapartum stillbirth because it accounts for 75% of all stillbirths. Unfortunately, few studies have differentiated between intrapartum and prepartum stillbirths leading to inadequate information about risk factors for sole intrapartum stillbirth. This study investigated risk factors for piglet's intrapartum stillbirth. Materials and Methods: Data of 1527 piglets born from 103 sows in one herd were recorded. Generalized linear mixed models were used to determine the relationship between investigated risk factors and intrapartum stillbirth at the piglet level. The potential risk factors were parity, gestation length (GL), litter size (LS), birth order (BO), birth interval (BI), cumulative farrowing duration (CFD), gender, crown-rump length, birth weight (BW), body mass index, ponderal index (PI), and BW deviation. Results: About 60% (60.2%, 62/103) litters had stillborn piglet(s), and the intrapartum stillbirth rate was 5.8% (89/1527). BW deviation (≤0.1 and >0.6 kg), LS >13, GL (<114 and >117 days), PI ≤54, and BO >10 were the most significant factors associated with increased intrapartum stillbirth. No effect of parity, sex, BI, and CFD on intrapartum stillbirth was detected. Conclusion: These data stressed the importance of piglets' size and shape in the prediction of intrapartum stillbirth. Furthermore, large LS, high BO, short, and long GL were associated with increased intrapartum stillbirth. The results of this study suggest that procedures aimed at increasing litter homogeneity, optimizing piglets' size and shape, avoiding short and long gestation, and increasing supervision rate, especially at the second half, of the farrowing may reduce piglet's intrapartum stillbirth.

High stillbirth rate in a swine farm in Vietnam and associated risk factors

“…This study indicated that body size and shape are important factors for stillbirth in piglets. These results corroborate the findings of several authors [ 8 , 5 , 10 ]. Furthermore, this study also indicated that PI was more important than other conformation characteristics (CRL, BW, and BMI) in explaining stillbirth.…”

“…This is the first study to report simultaneous effects of various factors, including piglet ones, on an extremely high stillbirth rate in piglets. The stillbirth rate of piglets (14.3%) in this study was very high in comparison with results that have been reported by others (4.1%–7.5%) [ 10 – 17 ]. We recently reported a stillbirth rate that varied between 5.2% and 8.4% in different populations of piglets in Vietnam [ 4 , 5 , 10 , 18 ].…”

“…The stillbirth rate of piglets (14.3%) in this study was very high in comparison with results that have been reported by others (4.1%–7.5%) [ 10 – 17 ]. We recently reported a stillbirth rate that varied between 5.2% and 8.4% in different populations of piglets in Vietnam [ 4 , 5 , 10 , 18 ]. The incidence of stillbirth at the litter level in this study (68.9%) was also higher than any data ever reported (27.8%–60.2%) [ 5 , 10 – 11 , 13 , 16 – 18 ].…”

“…We recently reported a stillbirth rate that varied between 5.2% and 8.4% in different populations of piglets in Vietnam [ 4 , 5 , 10 , 18 ]. The incidence of stillbirth at the litter level in this study (68.9%) was also higher than any data ever reported (27.8%–60.2%) [ 5 , 10 – 11 , 13 , 16 – 18 ]. The result suggested that stillbirth was really an economic and animal welfare problem on the investigated farm.…”

“…An increased stillbirth rate has been reported in large LSs, long farrowing durations, high parity sows, and short gestation lengths (GL) [ 6 ]. Recently, several important piglet characteristics related to stillbirth, i.e., BW, body mass index (BMI), ponderal index (PI), birth interval (BI), birth order (BO), and cumulative farrowing duration (CFD), have been identified [ 5 , 7 – 10 ].…”