Investigation of the Causes of Infant Mortality and Associated Factors in Hamadan Province in 2012

Considering the neonatal mortality rate is a marker of health in community; thus, this study was performed to assess the rate and main causes of neonatal death in Hamadan province. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 333 infants who had died in the Hamadan province were studied. Data was collected by the registration of infants' deaths software of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences and the data of death of babies at home was collected from their records. The data was analyzed by SPSS-16 software using chi-squared and Fisher's exact tests. Results: Of the 32113 live births in the Hamadan province in 2012, 333 cases of neonatal deaths had occurred. The most frequent causes of neonatal death were respiratory distress syndrome (55.5%), sepsis (10.2%), asphyxia (8.7%), congenital anomalies (6.6%) and DIC (5.7%); the least frequent causes were hypoglycemia (0.3%) and convalesce (0.9%). The relationships of birth weight (P = 0.002), gestational age (P = 0.001), infant age (P > 0.001), maternal age at delivery (P > 0.001) and congenital abnormality (P > 0.001) with the cause of death were found. However, the relationships of mode of delivery, infant gender, history of drug use by mother, mother medical history, and number of pregnancies with the cause of death were not found (P < 0.05). Conclusions: According to the findings, main causes of infant death rate were respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis, asphyxia and congenital anomalies. Therefore, for the prevention of infant death, care plans for prevention and treatment of these problems should be performed. Received: 03.07.2016 Accepted: 17.10.2016