1. Etiologies of Neonatal Mortality in a Tertiary Care Hospital in a Resource-Limited Setting
- Author
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Calixte Ida Penda, Patricia Epée Eboumbou, Essome Henri, Eyoum Billè Bertrand, Olivier Koki Ndombo, Charlotte Eposse, Christelle Mpah Edimo, Danielle Christiane Kedy Koum, and Ritha Mbono Betoko
- Subjects
Asphyxia ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Pregnancy ,Pediatrics ,Under-five ,business.industry ,Public health ,Mortality rate ,medicine.disease ,Neonatal infection ,medicine ,Etiology ,medicine.symptom ,business ,Malaria - Abstract
Background: Neonatal mortality remains a major public health problem in low income countries. The survival within the first 28 days of life remains a challenge in such countries. Many strategies have been implemented to reduce deaths in children under five especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Laquintinie Douala Hospital benefits from some of these measures including a perinatal network and an emergency voucher. We aimed to describe the main causes of neonatal deaths at Laquintinie Douala Hospital. Methods: We carried out a cross-sectional study including files of all deceased neonates in the neonatal unit during a 24 months period from January 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2018. Data collection included socio-demographic characteristics of the mothers and the newborns, clinical and therapeutic data and the evolution of the newborn. We used SPSS 20 software for data analysis with a p-value less than 0.05. Results: We included 270 files with an overall mortality rate of 13.1% and a sex ratio of 1.2. The main causes of death included prematurity (37.8%), neonatal infection (34.1%) and neonatal asphyxia (24.4%). The main factors associated with deaths included informal sector (OR = 5.49; 95% CI 0.86 - 34.77; p = 0.07) and a primary level of education for mothers, malaria during pregnancy (OR 2.28; 95% CI, 1.44 - 3.12; p = 0.0001), very preterm babies (OR 6.45; 95% CI 4.68 - 8.89; p 0.001) and resuscitation (OR 1.63; 95% CI 1.25 - 2.13; p = 0.0001). Conclusion: Neonatal mortality was lower than data in previous studies but remains high. This highlights the need for caregiver training and improvement of antenatal visits in our setting.
- Published
- 2021
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