Analysis of risk factors affecting neonatal mortality: Unveiling the hidden agony

Introduction: According to figures from August 2011, neonatal period, and accounts for 41% of all child deaths before the age of five. That share grew from 37% over the last decade, and is likely to increase further. New-born deaths dropped from 4.6 million in 1990 to 3.3 million in 2009, but fell only slightly during the last decade. The present study attempt to highlight the factors affecting neonatal mortality for better understanding of causes in order to decrease the NMR. Objective: 1. To study the effect of neonatal factors on their survival. 2. To give evidence based recommendations. Methodology-All of the patients registered at SNCU of MKCG Medical College& Hospital during the study duration constituted the sample size. The information on the study subjects was obtained by making regular visits to the SNCU, like-wise the outcome the cases were collected by follow ups. Results: A total of 412 cases died of different causes, in which HIE (40.54%) contributes to majority of the deaths followed by prematurity (24.28%) and infection (15.3%). About 26.7% of the cases died within 24 hours/1day. Majority (60.8%) of the sick neonatal deaths were within 1 week. Out of 1366 males, 304 (22.25%) died and 676 females, 108 (15.98%) died. Deaths were more in preterm (46%) and low birth weight (21.7%) babies compared to term (12.72%) and normal birth weight babies (18.13%). Conclusion: HIE and prematurity are the priority causes of neonatal mortality and neonates of male sex, LBW, preterm and less than 7 days old are more prone for death & faulty feeding practices is one the contributing factor for the neonatal mortality.