Factors associated with birth asphyxia in Pattani Hospital, Thailand

Abstract

Based on Apgar scores at 1 minute, we investigated determinants for birth asphyxia (score 7 or less) and newborn mortality (score 0) based on labour charts for 2,894 infants born at Pattani Hospital in southern Thailand during 2001. The birth asphyxia morbidity rate (score 1-7) was 5.0%, the mortality rate (score 0) was 2.2%, and the incidence rate of birth asphyxia was 73.5 per 1,000 live births. We used ordinal logistic regression to construct a predictive model for the risks of birth asphyxia mortality and morbidity, and found seven risk factors related to the mother's pregnancy (maternal age, cultural background, number of prenatal care visits, place of prenatal care, HIV condition, medical/obstetric complications, and birth weight), and two further risk factors related to the delivery (type of induction of labour and type of delivery).

Keywords

• birth asphyxia, apgar score, newborn, mortality and morbidity