Neonatal and Pediatric Medicine
Open Access

Abstract

Background & Aim: Worldwide, congenital anomalies are the common problems that can cause an estimated 303000 neonatal deaths (7% of all neonatal deaths) in 2015. Congenital anomalies occur at a rate of 3-6% of all births or 1 in every 33 babies born with the incidence of 11.87 per 1000 live births. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of congenital anomalies among delivered and admitted neonates in Harari regional state hospitals. Methods: An institutional based retrospective cross-sectional study was employed to assess the prevalence of congenital anomalies among 7,255 admitted and delivered neonates in selected Harari regional hospitals from December 18 to January 3, 2017. Three hospitals were selected by simple random sampling method. All the cards recorded from July 2016 to June 2017 were reviewed. Trained six data collectors and 3 supervisors were recruited. The collected data was cleaned and checked for consistency. Then entered into Epi-Data v3.5 and exported to SPSS v25 for analysis. Results were presented using result statements, tables, graphs, and charts. Results: In this study, a total of 6197 babies (3248 males and 2949 females) were delivered in Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital (HFSUH), Jugol and Harar General Hospital. From these, 45 (0.73%) babies have developed congenital anomalies. Among them, 28 (0.45%) and 17 (0.28%) were males and females respectively. On the other hand, 1058 (671 male and 387 female) babies were admitted to HFSUH and Jugol Hospital. Among the total, 30 (2.84%) admitted with congenital anomalies, of these, 20 (1.89%) and 10 (0.95%) were males and females respectively. Overall, in this study, 7,255 neonates were delivered and admitted in the three selected hospitals from July 2016 to June 2017. From these, 75 (48 males and 27 females) of them had congenital anomalies that gave the prevalence of 1.03% (0.66% males and 0.37% females). Conclusions: This study showed that the prevalence of congenital anomalies in Harar regional Hospitals was 10.3/1000 live births. Therefore, a collaborative effort is needed to tackle the problem, by regular antenatal follow-up, early prenatal diagnosis, and intervention and even planned termination and appropriate treatment after birth.

Biography

Hailemariam Mekonnen Workie has completed his BSc in Nursing from Haramaya University and MSc in Pediatrics Health Nursing from Addis Ababa University School of Allied Health. He is the Coordinator, Lecturer and Researcher of Neonatal and Pediatrics Health Nursing Department at Haramaya University, a premier academic organization. He has won more than 6 big projects and published more than 2 papers in reputed journals and has been serving as Reviewer of PLOS-One.

E-mail: yihenew2129@gmail.com