Evaluation of the Frequency and Causes of Infants Mortality in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Fatemieh Hospital of Hamadan, Iran, 2015

The infants mortality rate is one of the important health indices in the communities. The current study aimed at determining the frequency and causes of infants mortality in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Fatemieh Hospital of Hamadan, Iran in 2015.
The present retrospective, cross sectional study was conducted on all the infants admitted to NICU at Fatemieh Hospital of Hamadan in 2015 and died. Referring to the archives of the hospital, the required information about the infants died during the stay at NICU were extracted and analyzed with SPSS version 19.
In the current study, a total of 1080 newborns admitted to NICU were investigated, of which 200 cases including 96 males (48%) and 104 females (52%) died. The most frequent infants mortality was observed in the cases aged 28-32 weeks of gestation (63%; n = 126); of the 200 studied cases, 74.5% (n = 149) were delivered via cesarean section, 3.5% (n = 7) had anomalies, and 4% (n = 8) reported the maternal risk factors. The most common causes of death were the respiratory distress syndrome (74.9%; n = 149), followed by multiple pregnancies (n = 44) of which 27 cases (61.4%) were twins and 17 cases (38.6%) were the triples.
Considering the high prevalence of premature death in infants less than 37 weeks of gestation, more attentions should be paid on the control of preterm delivery in order to prevent respiratory distress syndrome and birth asphyxia.