Author(s)

Innocent Afeke^1*, Lennox Mac-Ankrah², Ibrahim Jamfaru², Kokou H. Amegan-Aho³, Hintermann Kobina Mbroh⁴, Sylvester Y. Lokpo¹, Edem Obum², Delali Geni¹, Joseph Adu-Amankwaah¹, Verner N. Orish²

¹Department of Medical Laboratory Science, School of Allied Health Science, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Ghana.
²Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Ghana.
³Department of Paediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Ghana.
⁴Maternity Department, Volta Regional Hospital, Ho, Ghana.

Objectives: Current study sought to determine an association between Low Birth Weight (LBW) and early neonatal mortality at a resource limited country’s referral hospital and to determine relationship between maternal age and birth outcomes. Method: A retrospective study analyzing data on births in the Volta Regional Hospital, Ghana from the period of November 2011 to June 2016. A total of 8279 births were analyzed. Results: Results suggest that teenage mothers (8.60%) are more likely to give birth to pre-term babies than the elderly (6.60%) and the adult mothers (4.61%). LBW is highest among the teenage mothers (12.69%) followed by the elderly mothers (7.87%) and then the least among the adult mothers (6.48%). Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) and Macrosomia births were more observed among the elderly mothers (0.90%; 2.17%) than the teenage (0.28%; 0.14%) and adult mothers (0.34%; 1.61%) respectively. Data suggest that 100% of the ELBW were pre-term birth, 88.28% Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), 34.56% LBW and only 1.06% of the pre-term birth were with Normal Birth Weight (NBW). Death rate ranges from 50% for ELBW, 33.59% for VLBW, 8.22% for LBW, 5.43% for Macrosomia and 1.5% for NBW. However, death rate distribution among the various age groups was statistically not significant (P < 0.106). Conclusions: Our study suggests that early neonatal death, especially deaths among ELBW and VLBW is still high at the VRH of Ghana and therefore there is the need for further studies into interventions to reduce death among neonates born with VLBW and ELBW.

Low Birth Weight, Neonate; Early Neonatal Death, Maternal Age

Afeke, I. , Mac-Ankrah, L. , Jamfaru, I. , Amegan-Aho, K. , Mbroh, H. , Lokpo, S. , Obum, E. , Geni, D. , Adu-Amankwaah, J. and Orish, V. (2017) Maternal Age, Low Birth Weight and Early Neonatal Death in Tertiary Hospital in the Volta Region of Ghana. Open Journal of Pediatrics, 7, 254-262. doi: 10.4236/ojped.2017.74029.