Objectives: Current study sought to determine an association between Low Birth Weight (LBW) and early neonatal mortality at a resource limited country's referral hospital and to determine relationship between maternal age and birth outcomes. Method: A retrospective study analyzing data on births in the Volta Regional Hospital, Ghana from the period of November 2011 to June 2016. A total of 8279 births were analyzed. Results: Results suggest that teenage mothers (8.60%) are more likely to give birth to pre-term babies than the elderly (6.60%) and the adult mothers (4.61%). LBW is highest among the teenage mothers (12.69%) followed by the elderly mothers (7.87%) and then the least among the adult mothers (6.48%). Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) and Macrosomia births were more observed among the elderly mothers (0.90%; 2.17%) than the teenage (0.28%; 0.14%) and adult mothers (0.34%; 1.61%) respectively. Data suggest that 100% of the ELBW were pre-term birth, 88.28% Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), 34.56% LBW and only 1.06% of the pre-term birth were with Normal Birth Weight (NBW). Death rate ranges from 50% for ELBW, 33.59% for VLBW, 8.22% for LBW, 5.43% for Macrosomia and 1.5% for NBW. However, death rate distribution among the various age groups was statistically not significant (P < 0.106). Conclusions: Our study suggests that early neonatal death, especially deaths among ELBW and VLBW is still high at the VRH of Ghana and therefore there is the need for further studies into interventions to reduce death among neonates born with VLBW and ELBW.
Skin infections are common disorders responsible for hospital attendance in the pediatric practice. Unfortunately, the epidemiology of these infections in tertiary facilities is both unstudied and underreported. Therefore, the burden of skin infections among children in Ghana remains indistinct. This hospital-based study sought to evaluate skin infections among children attending the Ho Teaching Hospital (HTH). In this retrospective study, the electronic medical records of children aged 0 to 14 years (12, 170) who attended the HTH's pediatric unit outpatient clinic between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2016 were reviewed. All (1, 877) identified dermatological case records from the database were retrieved. They were then double-checked to further affirm demographic information (age and sex) and diagnosis of skin infection with the medical folders to clarify unclear observations. Pearson chi square was used to evaluate the association between the different age group of the children and the types of skin infection as well as comorbidities. Only 1, 887 (15.5%) of all case records reported with a presenting dermatological complaint. Sixty-five percent (65%) of these (1226 of 1887) were diagnosed with a form of skin infection. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of children with skin infection were admitted into the ward for further management. Majority (441, 35.97%) of skin infected children were between 1-4 yrs. Impetigo (393, 46.6%) and furunculosis (410, 48.6%) were the most prevalent skin infections compared to herpes (3, 6.5%
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