TITLE:
Etiologies of Neonatal Mortality in a Tertiary Care Hospital in a Resource-Limited Setting
AUTHORS:
Calixte Ida Penda, Ritha Mbono Betoko, Danielle Kedy Koum, Essome Henri, Patricia Epée Eboumbou, Christelle Mpah Edimo, Eyoum Billè Bertrand, Charlotte Eposse, Olivier Koki Ndombo
KEYWORDS:
Newborn, Neonatal Mortality, Laquintinie Douala Hospital, Cameroon
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.11 No.2,
June
8,
2021
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.