ASSESSMENT OF EARLY COMPLICATIONS AND FINAL OUTCOME IN VERY LOW BIRTH WEIGHT (VLBW) NEONATES WITH PREMATURITY: A LONGITUDINAL DESCRIPTIVE STUDY

This study aims to investigate the complications and outcomes of premature neonates with very low birth weight in Shahid Motahari Hospital of Urmia in 2017. In this longitudinal descriptive study, all the premature infants with less than 37 weeks of gestation and birth weight less than 1500 grams that were born in Shahid Motahari Hospital of Urmia during the second six months of the year 2017 and were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of this center were included in the study. Information regarding the complications of the prematurity and low birth weight were recorded on the checklist. All the data were analyzed by SPSS version 21. Of the 97 infants, 52 (53.6%) were male and 45 (46.3%) were female. The mean birth weight was 1392.06±137.7 gr. Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) was the most common disorder among neonates and it was observed in 70 premature infants (72.1%). Of the 82 neonates born with cesarean section, 55 neonates (67.1%) were discharged from the hospital and 27 neonates (32.9%) died. It can be concluded that the rate of neonatal recovery and discharge in the study population is comparable to that in most developing countries. In other words, increasing the healing rate, especially in newborns weighing less than 1500 grams, improving the quality of perinatal cares, reducing preterm labor and the rate of the births with low birth weight, leveling the perinatal services and personnel training to restore standards in the delivery room, the early use of the NCPAP, improving the parenteral nutrition status, and the transmission process of infants, and standardizing the care protocols of these newborns will decrease mortality and morbidity without long-term complications in this group of infants in the future.