The causes of death included cord complication, meconium aspiration syndrome
(2 cases), unexplained intrauterine foetal demise (2 cases), brain damage due to hypoxia, true knot in the cord, gestational diabetes, meconium aspiration after a mother refused an indicated induction due to poor fetal testing results, congenital anomaly (3 cases), and pneumonia.
The majority of the trials in which these deaths took place were conducted in the 1980s–1990s. Researchers calculated that based on these data, there would need to be 328–410 elective inductions at 41 weeks to prevent one perinatal death.