Burden,outcome and diseases of low birth weight babies - A descriptive study in military hospital,Rawalpindi

Objectives: to find out the frequency of low birth weight babies,diseases for which they were admitted to military hospital,rawalpindi and the outcome at the time of discharge. study design: descriptive cross sectional study. place and duration of study: this was carried out in neonatal intensive care unit of military hospital between august 2013 to january 2014. participants & methods: all babies born alive or admitted to nicu during study period were recorded (1109). data on low birth weight babies (weight less than 2,500 g) demographic profile,disease/reason for admission and the outcome at the time of discharge as alive or dead was collected using a proforma and analyzed using microsoft excel and spss version 20. a p value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. results: four hundred and thirty two (38% - 39%) low birth weight babies were admitted to military hospital. out of these,242 (56%) survived. cumulatively,60% of babies stayed in hospital for 3 days or less. majority (55%) of all deaths occurred on the first day. respiratory distress syndrome (28%) and sepsis (19%) contributed to the major bulk of the diseases among low birth weight births irrespective of outcome. conclusion: low birth weight is a major cause of neonatal mortality. rds and sepsis are prominent diseases in these babies. those who survive,place burden on the hospital because of long length of stay. © 2015,pakistan pediatric journal. all rights reserved.