Preterm Very Low-Birth Weight Babies: Outcome of Admitted Newborns at A Community-Level Medical College Hospital in Bangladesh

Very low birth weight (VLBW) premature infants are at increased risk of morbidity and mortality, mainly due to infections and complications of prematurity. The present article is a descriptive analysis of the most common reasons for hospital admission of VLBW infants, morbidity during hospital stay, and their immediate outcome at a community level medical college hospital in Bangladesh. Sixty VLBW neonates ( 1,500 grams weight), 37 males and 23 females, 72 hours of age were enrolled prospectively from March 2005 to February 2007; 4 babies were excluded. Thirty-four babies were hospital born and 26 home delivered cases admitted postnatally. The mean birth weight and gestational age of the newborns were 1270 ± 169 grams and 30.9 ± 2.9 weeks respectively. Forty-one of 60 cases (68.3%) mothers received at least one antenatal care visit. Common clinical presentations were prematurity alone (36.7%) and its complications like delayed crying (25.0%), feeding problem (23.3%), lethargy (16.7%), hypothermia (10.0%) and respiratory problem (8.3%). The commonest morbidity during hospital stay was neonatal hyperbilirubinemia requiring phototherapy (26.7%), apnoea of prematurity (15.0%), and septicaemia (11.7%). The overall survival rate was 56.7%; most of the deceased cases were those 1250 grams (15/28, 53.6%) and 30 weeks of gestation (17/30, 56.7%). No infant with a birth weight 850 grams or a gestational age 28 weeks survived. The most common cause of death was birth asphyxia (38.5%), followed by extreme prematurity (26.9%), and septicaemia (19.2%). Very low birth weight infants had relatively higher survival rates probably due to low infection rate.