Introduction:
Despite the extreme levels of care given to pregnant women and newborns, there is a high risk of infant mortality during the first weeks post-delivery. Understanding the causes might be fruitful for gynaecologists and neonatologists in reducing the risk factors involved. This could be achieved by targeting perinatal and postnatal care.

Aim:
The aim of this research project was to analyse the causes of preterm and full term infant deaths during the period of 2010 to 2015.

Material and methods:
The analysis was performed in accordance with the autopsy protocols provided by the Chair and Department of Pathomorphology, Zabrze. The data contains 103 protocols which involved infants within the age range 0–1 years. The obtained information collected in Microsoft Office Excel 2010. Further analysis of the data was conducted using the software StatSoft, Inc. Statistica 12.0.

Results:
The highest mortality rate was observed in the neonatal period – 55 (75%) premature babies and 24 (80%) full-term babies. There was statistical significance in the frequency of both pulmonary diseases (p = 0.0094) – full-term (17%) and pre-term (42%) babies – and in congenital defects (p = 0.0012) – full-term (50%) and pre-term (18%) babies.

Conclusions:
The research showed that the main cause of death in 38% of pre-term babies was due to multi-organ failure, whereas those in the case of full-term babies (14%) was due to sudden cardiac arrest.