OBJECTIVE: The neonatal mortality rate in Indonesia as in 2017 was 15 per 1000 live births which was under the target of Sustainable Development Goals of 12 per 1000 live births. Therefore, identifying the characteristics of death are important to prevent mortality. This study aimed to describe the characteristics of neonatal death at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of RSUD Bajawa, a hospital with limited resource.
METHOD: This descriptive study was conducted retrospectively using medical records of all neonates who admitted to NICU of RSUD Bajawa from January to December 2018. Causes of death are determined by physician according to guideline. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics.
RESULT: Of 306 neonates admitted to NICU, there were 28 deaths (77.8%) with 18 were male and 10 were female. Fifteen of those were low birth weight neonates. Most of the neonates (20 cases) were delivered through vaginal birth. Twenty-one neonates were born in the hospital and 7 neonates were born outside the hospital. Early death was occurred in 24 neonates and mainly related to asphyxia (9 cases), followed by prematurity (7 cases), congenital abnormality (4 cases) and infection (4 cases). Meanwhile, late neonatal death (4 cases) caused by infection (3 cases) and asphyxia-related (1 case).
CONCLUSION: The neonatal death were still high and mostly befall in the early neonatal period. The causes were different between early and late neonatal death, with asphyxia and infection as the main causes respectively. Thus, to decrease the neonatal mortality these findings must be considered and furtherly evaluated.