Abstract
Bangladesh has a neonatal death rate that is substantially high and demands urgent attention. To assess the causes of neonatal mortality, 1,019 pregnant women were followed up in eight randomly-selected rural areas of the country. Trained female interviewers visited the households of the subjects at four-week intervals to record neonatal deaths (within 28 days after birth). For each death, they administered a structured verbal autopsy questionnaire to the mother and/or a close family member. Based on these field data, three neonatologists arrived at a consensus to assign two causes of death - an originating cause and a direct cause. The neonatal mortality rate was 53.5 per 1,000 livebirths. The originating causes of death were pre-maturity/low birth-weight (30%), difficult labour (16%), unhygienic birth practices (16%), others (4%), and unknown (34%). The direct causes were sepsis (32%), asphyxia (26%), tetanus (15%), respiratory distress (6%), others (6%), and unknown (14%). According to the prevailing causes of neonatal deaths, implementation of intervention programmes, often in the community, that do not depend on highly-technical training or sophisticated equipment should be implemented.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 16-24 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 1 |
State | Published - Mar 1 2005 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Bangladesh
- Causes of death
- Neonatal mortality
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Food Science
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
- Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis