Introduction: The neonatal period presents the greatest daily risk of death compared to any other stage of childhood.

Objective: To study the clinical profile of neonates admitted in Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) in a tertiary teaching hospital of a tribal area.

Materials and Methods: A retrospective case record analysis of all admissions between January 2017 to December 2022 was done based on medical record data. The neonates with complete record were included in the study.

Results: Total of 1476 newborns were admitted from the year 2017 to 2022 in SNCU of TRIHMS, out of which, 860 (58.3%) patients were male and 612 (41.5%) were females. 84.4% admissions were inborn and 15.6% were outborn patients. Major causes of admission were neonatal jaundice (22.4%) followed by prematurity (15.4%), neonatal sepsis (15.1%) and birth asphyxia (11.4%). The outcome rates for survival, referral, deaths and LAMA were 79.3%, 9.7%, 5.8% and 5.1% respectively. The leading causes of mortality were birth asphyxia (22.3%), prematurity (21.2%) and sepsis (11.8%).

Conclusion: In our SNCU, common causes of deaths are birth asphyxia, prematurity, sepsis respiratory distress syndrome and congenital heart disease. Enhancing antennal care, improving access to healthcare facilities, ensuring timely referral of high risk cases, building capacity and providing intensive interventional management can significantly reduce neonatal mortality and its associated complications. Surveillance and training interventions for managing these causes should be established and reinforced.

Keywords: Neonates, morbidity, mortality, preterm, sepsis.

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Dr Ngilyang Sunya

Assistant Professor, Department of Paediatrics, Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (TRIHMS), Naharlagun, Arunachal Pradesh