A multivariate analysis of factors associated with infant mortality in South-East of Iran

Objectives: To determine the causes and risk factors of infant mortality. Methods: The population-based case-control study in 2011 comprised infants under one-year-old who had died at Ali-ebn-Abitaleb Hospital in Zahedan, Iran, during 2011 who were taken as the case group, while infants selected randomly through multistage sampling from various health centres formed the control group. Data were analysed using logistic regression model. Results: There were 186 cases including 103(55.7%) boys, and 29(15.6%) incidents of multiple births. The other group had 300 healthy infants including 139(46.5%) boys, and 4(1.3%) incidents of multiple births. According to the multivariate model, chance of death in neonates with birth weight under 2500 gram, less than 4 antenatal visits, lack of exclusive breast feeding, delivering at home and abortion history among mothers was 46.3%, 27.4%, 13.2%, 9.4% and 7.0% respectively compared to 42.1%, 15.3%, 4.5%, 5.8% and 3.0% respectively in the post- neonatal period. For post-neonatal period, lack of complete vaccination also increased the chance of death by 14.9%. Conclusion: Most of the factors related to infant mortality can be controlled by providing sufficient information and healthcare to pregnant mothers which will result in reduced infant mortality rate.