Background: Neonatal mortality remains a major public health
problem in low income countries. The survival within the first 28 days of life
remains a challenge in such countries. Many strategies have been implemented to
reduce deaths in children under five especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
Laquintinie Douala Hospital benefits from some of these measures including a
perinatal network and an emergency voucher. We aimed to describe the main
causes of neonatal deaths at Laquintinie Douala Hospital. Methods: We carried out a cross-sectional study including
files of all deceased neonates in the neonatal unit during a 24 months period
from January 1st, 2017 to December
31st, 2018. Data collection included socio-demographic
characteristics of the mothers and the newborns, clinical and therapeutic data
and the evolution of the newborn. We used SPSS 20 software for data analysis
with a p-value
less than 0.05. Results:We included 270 files with an overall mortality rate of 13.1% and a sex ratio of 1.2. The main causes of
death included prematurity (37.8%),
neonatal infection (34.1%) and neonatal asphyxia (24.4%). The main
factors associated with deaths included informal sector (OR = 5.49; 95% CI 0.86
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