Linear trends and seasonality of births and perinatal outcomes in Upper East Region, Ghana from 2010 to 2014

Abstract

BackgroundSeasonal variations greatly influence birth patterns differently from country to country. In Ghana, there is paucity of information on birth seasonal patterns. This retrospective study described the trends and seasonality of births and perinatal outcomes in Upper East Region of Ghana.MethodsBirths occurring in each month of the calendar years (2010–2014; inclusive) were extracted from the District Health Information Management System (DHIMS2) database of the Bolgatanga Municipal Health Directorate and exported into Microsoft Excel spread sheet and Epi Ifo for analysis. Analysis was carried out by calculating average number of births per month correcting for unequal month length using 30 days. A Chi-square test for trend was performed to check for statistical significance (p < 0.05) in trends and seasonality of birth and perinatal outcomes.ResultsThere were 24,171 health facility deliveries, of which 97.7 % were singleton deliveries and 2.3 % were multiple (two or three) deliveries. There was a consistent rise in the annual health facility deliveries controlled for the number of fertile women, from 4169 in 2010 to 5474 in 2014 (p < 0.0001). Monthly birth distribution displayed a periodic pattern with peaks in May, September and October and troughs during the months of January, February and July (p < 0.0001). Women were likely to give birth during the raining season than the dry season. Caesarean Section (CS) rate showed a steady rise over the years (124 per 1000 births in 2010 to 185 per 1000 births in 2014 (p < 0.0001) with overall rate of 14.6 %. Stillbirth (SB) rate, however decreased slightly over the years from 29 per 1000 births to 23 per 1000 births (p = 0.197) with overall SB rate of 2.6 %. Similarly, Low Birth Weight (LBW) declined from 77 per 1000 live births to 71 per 1000 live births from 2010 to 2014 (p < 0.0001). Seasonal (rainy and dry) distributions did not show a clear difference in birth frequencies.ConclusionHealth facility delivery was persistently high in the Bolgatanga Municipality with birth peaking in May, September and October. Despite the rising rate of caesarean section, stillbirth rate did not significantly improved over the years. A prospective study may reveal the reasons for the increasing caesarean section rate. Additionally, understanding the factors that affect the decreasing trends of low birth weight in the municipality is crucial to public health policy makers in Ghana.

NDVI Predicts Birth Seasonality in Historical Baja California Sur, Mexico

“…We find, consistent with the animal ethology and evolutionary ecology literature, that local energy availability evaluated by way NDVI to be positively associated with monthly birth pulses. Although a relationship between precipitation and temperature on monthly birth pulses in humans has been found in past studies (Condon & Scaglion 1982;Lam & Miron 1998;Lawlor et al 2005;Torche & Corvalan 2010;Osei et al 2016), here we find that they have no significant effect on birth seasonality; however, both are indirectly related to it through their combined impact on NDVI.…”

“…Local energy availability is impacted by a number of bio-physical factors, including temperature and precipitation (Wu et al 2001;Pettorelli 2013;Yan et al 2015;Gilbert 2019). Not surprisingly, a large body of research has linked seasonal variation in precipitation and temperature to birth seasonality in humans (Condon & Scaglion 1982;Lam & Miron 1998;Ellis et al 2005;Lawlor et al 2005;Torche & Corvalan 2010;Osei et al 2016). However, these aspects of climate serve as proxy variables for local energy availability (Pettorelli 2013) and no one has examined the direct impact of local energy availability on human birth seasonality.…”

Dependence of nighttime sleep duration in one-month-old infants on alterations in natural and artificial photoperiod

“…However, the parity of infants was dependent on the season, with uniparae being most common in autumn. The dependence of parity on the season has been recognised previously, the pattern of which alters according to the social and temporal background of the region 39 40 . We found seasonality to be a significant variable in infant nighttime sleep duration even after adjustment for parity (data not shown), suggesting that any influence of season-specific parity is likely to be minimal.…”

Seasonality of adverse birth outcomes in women with and without HIV in a representative birth outcomes surveillance study in Botswana

“…Numerous studies have assessed the relationship between season and adverse birth outcomes. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] These studies have typically focused on the seasonality of preterm birth and birth weight, whereas fewer studies have examined the relationship between season and less common adverse birth outcomes like stillbirth. 22 Several small studies have been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, where adverse birth outcomes may be more tightly linked to distinct rainy and dry seasons and related agricultural cycles, 16 18 20 21 and one meta-analysis of studies conducted in East Africa found an increased risk of preterm birth during the rainy season.…”