Infant Mortality at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto.

Abstract

Summary: Eleven thousand, three hundred and eighty-four infants were admitted into the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, over a three-year period, 1984 - 1986. Of these children, 818 died, a mortality rate of seven percent; 68 percent of all the deaths occurred in neonates. The main causes of death among these neonates were prematurity and associated respiratory problems, septicaemia and birth trauma. In the post-neonatal period, the main causes of death included gastroenteritis, lower respiratory tract infection, septicaemia and anaemia. Many of the causes of death were preventable and this fact stresses the need to improve the provision of primary health care services to pregnant women and newborn babies.