Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

  Background : One of the most important health indices is neonatal mortality rate. Mortality in neonatal period is high, that is about 65% of mortality in infancy. This study was conducted to identify neonatal mortality causes among neonates admitted in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Imam Khomeini Hospital, Ahvaz, 2011-2012.

  Methods: This study is a cross-sectional study over all infants died in the NICU at Imam Khomeini hospital from March 2011 to March 2012.The data was obtained from medical records . Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS version 19.

  Results: From 1620 infants admitted in 2011, 284(17.5%) infants died. About 39.1% of newborns were female, 59.9% male and 1.1% with ambiguity in sex. About 79.2% were premature and 77.1% of them were low birth weight (LBW). Some 78.2% of mortality were occurred at the first week of life. The most common causes of death were prematurity and its complications (58.8%), congenital anomalies (17.3%), birth asphyxia (8%) and infection (6%), respectively.

  Conclusion : Due to the high mortality rate among infants aged below 37 weeks, more attention must be paid for prevention of preterm delivery, infection risks, birth asphyxia etc.