Review of Infant and Child Death in a Tertiary Care Teaching Institute in Surat

Abstract

Background: A systematic review of child Death (CDR) was required to improve the quality of neonatal health care to avoid more deaths in that particular group especially. So the present research was carried out to study the reasons behind neonatal mortality in the present tertiary care referral centre. Material and Methods: A cross- sectional study by reviewing case paper of deceased children between 1-5 yrs died in a tertiary care hospital in Surat. Results: Total live births were 7677, 197 died within 28 days, i.e neonatal mortality rate is 25.66 and 223 died within a year i.e. infant mortality rate is 29.04. Among the ELBW babies 68.1% died, in VLBW babies 29.5% died, in LBW babies 10.96% died and in normal weight baby 7.2% died. Out of total NICU admission 43.5 % were preterm, out of which 49.36% were extremely premature while 50.63% were premature. Out of total 197 neonatal deaths, sepsis was responsible in 69.54% cases followed by extreme prematurity or prematurity (52.1%). Conclusions: Immediate cause of death was sepsis, HMD, MAS and birth asphyxia. Underlying cause was extreme prematurity, prematurity, sepsis and birth asphyxia. Contributory factors were ELBW, VLBW and LBW. Maturity and birth weight are two most important factors which needs emphasis for prevention of neonatal deaths.

Keywords

• Child death
• Infant death
• Review
• Cause of death
• neonatal death
• NICU