Abstract:
Background: More than one third of the neonatal deaths at Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
(NICU) in Debre Tabor General Hospital (DTGH) are attributable to birth asphyxia. Most of
these neonates are referred from the maternity ward in the hospital. Concerns have also been
raised regarding delayed intrapartum decisions for emergency obstetrics action in the hospital.
However, there has been no recent scientific evidence about the exact burden of birth asphyxia
and its specific determinants among live births at maternity ward of DTGH. Moreover, the public
health importance of delivery time and professional mix of labor attendants haven’t been
addressed in the prior studies.
Methods: Hospital based cross sectional study was conducted on a sample of 582 mother
newborn dyads at maternity ward. Every other mother newborn dyad was included from
December 2019 to March 2020. Pre-tested structured questionnaire and checklist were used for
data collection. The collected data were processed and entered into Epidata version 4.2 and
exported to Stata version 14. Binary logistic regressions were fitted and statistical significance
was declared at p less than 0.05 with 95% CI.
Results: The prevalence of birth asphyxia was 28.35% [95% CI: 26.51, 35.24%]. From the final
model, fetal mal-presentation (AOR = 6.96: 3.16, 15.30), premature rupture of fetal membranes
(AOR = 6.30, 95% CI: 2.45, 16.22), meconium stained amniotic fluid (AOR = 7.15: 3.07, 16.66),
vacuum delivery (AOR =6.21: 2.62, 14.73), night time delivery (AOR = 6.01: 2.82, 12.79) and
labor attendance by medical interns alone (AOR = 3.32:1.13, 9.78) were positively associated
with birth asphyxia at 95% CI.
Conclusions: The prevalence of birth asphyxia has remained a problem of public health
importance in the study setting. Therefore, the existing efforts of emergency obstetric and
newborn care should be strengthened to prevent birth asphyxia from the complications of fetal
mal-presentation, premature rupture of fetal membranes, meconium stained amniotic fluid and
vacuum delivery. Moreover, night time deliveries and professional mixes of labor and/delivery
care providers should be given more due emphasis.