TITLE:
Maternal Age, Low Birth Weight and Early Neonatal Death in Tertiary Hospital in the Volta Region of Ghana
AUTHORS:
Innocent Afeke, Lennox Mac-Ankrah, Ibrahim Jamfaru, Kokou H. Amegan-Aho, Hintermann Kobina Mbroh, Sylvester Y. Lokpo, Edem Obum, Delali Geni, Joseph Adu-Amankwaah, Verner N. Orish
KEYWORDS:
Low Birth Weight, Neonate; Early Neonatal Death, Maternal Age
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.7 No.4,
November
21,
2017
ABSTRACT: Objectives: Current study sought to determine an association between Low Birth
Weight (LBW) and early neonatal mortality at a resource limited country’s
referral hospital and to determine relationship between maternal age and birth
outcomes. Method: A retrospective study analyzing data on births
in the Volta Regional Hospital, Ghana from the period of November 2011 to June
2016. A total of 8279 births were analyzed. Results: Results suggest that teenage
mothers (8.60%) are more likely to give birth to pre-term babies than the elderly (6.60%) and the adult mothers (4.61%). LBW is highest among the teenage mothers (12.69%) followed by the elderly mothers (7.87%) and then the
least among the adult mothers (6.48%).
Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) and
Macrosomia births were more observed among the elderly mothers (0.90%;
2.17%) than the teenage (0.28%; 0.14%) and adult mothers (0.34%; 1.61%) respectively.
Data suggest that 100% of the ELBW were pre-term birth, 88.28% Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), 34.56% LBW and only
1.06% of the pre-term birth were with Normal Birth Weight (NBW). Death
rate ranges from 50% for ELBW, 33.59% for VLBW, 8.22% for LBW, 5.43% for Macrosomia
and 1.5% for NBW. However, death rate distribution among the various age groups
was statistically not significant (P 0.106). Conclusions: Our study
suggests that early neonatal death,
especially deaths among ELBW and VLBW is still high at the VRH of Ghana
and therefore there is the need for further studies into interventions to
reduce death among neonates born with VLBW and ELBW.