Prevalence of Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy among Neonates in a Tertiary Care Hospital Karachi

Abstract

Birth asphyxia affects 3–5 infants per 1000 live births, with 0.5–1 infants per 1000 live births developing brain damage in the form of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). HIE prevalence data for developing countries are not available. So aim of the current study was to find out the prevalence of Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy Among Neonates in a tertiary care Hospital Karachi.A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Paediatrics Ward Unit-II of Civil Hospital, Karachi The inclusion crieteria of the study was the age of patient’s mother between 18-40 years, history of fetal distress and APGAR score 0-3 for longer than 5 minutes Sarnat criteria was used to diagnose HIE at the time of admission. Data was collected on self-designed proforma consisting of demographic variables including maternal age, gestational age, parity and APGAR score. Data was entered and analyzed in Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20. The mean ± SD age of mother of neonates enrolled in this study was 27.41 ± 5.44 years.Almost two thirds of all mothers, were of age group 21-30 years. It is worth noting that 37.2% cases presented at gestational age of 33-36 weeks. More cases of HIE were of female gender. About 46.2% had presented with serum pH of 6.01 to 6.99. Simultaneously; it was also found that children having 5 minutes APGAR score of 1-2 were 715% while neonates weighing between 2001 and 3000 grams were 84.1. The frequency of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy was 44.8%.It can be concluded that the prevalence of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy is 44.8% in the current setting. Female gender, elder age mothers, post-mature babies, very low or very high birth weight and low APGAR score are more associated factor with higher frequency of HIE.