Background & Objectives: Providing, maintainance and promotion of neonatal health as a special high-risk group has a special role in heath services. According to statistics, 4 million out of 130 million neonates, born every year, die in the first week of their life. 99% of this mortality takes place in developing countries. 38% of the deaths below the age of 5 belongs to neonatal deaths. To decrease this mortality, some factors such as mother condition (including health care both before and after pregnancy), perinatal factors and life-threatening factors in the first 28 days after birth. This study was performed in hospitals under Ardabil University of Medical Sciences to determine the related factors of neonatal mortality.

  Methods: This case-control study was conducted on 160 neonatals (80 cases of neonatal deaths and 80 live births as controls). The demographic data of two groups were separately analyzed to obtain descriptive results. Also the most common causes of neonatal mortality were obtained through studying cases. Moreover, the parents of live neonates were asked questions to evaluate the effect of social factors. Finally all of these related factors were compared.

  Results: From 160 neonates under study, 71 (44.4%) were female and others were male. Neonatal mortality in males was 1.3 times as much as that in females. 16(12.1%) mothers had history of still birth. 18(11.3%) mothers were illiterate and 27 (16.9%) had college education. 31(19.4%) neonates were under 1500gr, 42 (26.3%) 1500- 2500gr and others above 2500 gr. 37 (46.3%) mothers in case group and 24(30%) in control had no access to transportation facilities. The most common causes for neonatal mortality were prematurity with 44 (55.1%) cases and aspiration, septicemia, asphyxia each one with 4 (2.5%) cases. There were statistically significant relationship between neonatal mortality rate on the one hand and birth weight, access to transportation facilities and mothers, living place (rural or urban) (p=0.023).

  Conclusion: According to the results, factors such as birth weight, access to transportation facilities as well as the mothers’ living location (rural or urban) were determining factors in the neonatal mortality. Some measures seem necessary to by taken in order to decrease the effect of thses factors.

  Background & Objectives: Neonatal mortality rate is a main indicator of hygienic development and recognition of the mortality causes is the first step for reduction of the mortality rate and promotion of this indicator. Therefore, in this study, the causes of neonatal mortality have been investigated in Ardabil medical university related hospitals.

  Methods: This study is a retrospective, cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical one that has been done on the bases of admission's units and filling the medical record form for all neonates who have been admitted to Alavi and Imam Khomeini hospitals in Ardabil from September 2006 to September 2007. The questions of forms consisted of infant’s sex, birth weight, gestational age, cause and age of death. The data were analyzed by SPSS software with utilizing T- test and Chi-Squares.

  Results: During this study, there were 1881 admissions of which there were 148 deaths (7.86%). The causes of mortality were hyaline membrane disease (HMD) (52.02%), sepsis (14.86%), pneumonia (9.45%), congenital anomaly (12.83%), asphyxia (7.43%) and meconium aspiration (3.37%). Among the dead neonates, 54.72% were male and others were female. There were 550 LBW neonates and 111 deaths in this group result of our study showed that mortality rate in LBW neonates was 20.18%. There were 578 preterm neonates and 122 deaths in this group prevalence of mortality rate in preterm neonates was 21.10%.

  Conclusion: Prematurity and low birth weight are the most important and fixed cases of infant mortality. The most common causes of mortality were hyaline membrane disease and sepsis. Therefore, the prevention of preterm labor for reduction of prematurity and its related complication recommended which may lead to decreased rate of neonatal mortality.

  Background & Objectives: Birth weight less than 2500gr (as result of preterm delivery and/or intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR)) is a major cause of both neonatal health. Predominate cause of LBW in developed countries is premature birth, whereas in developing countries is more often IUGR. Different risk factors, including demographic and behavioral during and before pregnancy are effective in LBW incidences which can reduce LBW and neonatal mortality rate by identification and control of these risk factors. The present study has been carried out with purpose of identification and decreasing the LBW rate in Ardabil.

 Methods: In this case – control study all infants delivered in 2006 in hospitals in Ardabil were investigated. Every neonate whose weight was less than 2500gr was taken as a case (n=470) and 482 neonates whose weight was more than 2500gr was taken as a control. Data gathering was done through questionnaires, interviewing the mothers and physical examination. The data were analyzed statistically through SPSS.

 Results: In the present study, the presence of LBW amount is %6.4 in Ardabil hospitals. The results of our study showed that a significant relationship existed between prematurely and gestational age<37wk, mother’s age, mother’s job and maternal weight, premature rupture of membranes (PROM), maternal diseases, multiple births, bleeding during pregnancy, interval between pregnancies less than <2 years, prior history of low birth weight, use of drugs by mother in pregnancy, congenital malformation with LBW. In this study relation between parity, the use of Folic Acid, Fe, cigarette smoking and addiction of mother, living area (village or city), family marriage, health care and mother’s education were not significant with LBW.

  Conclusion: The LBW important risk factors in Ardabil hospitals were prematurity or gestational age <37wk, multiple pregnancies, PROM, mother’s age over 35 years, and mother weight <50kg, maternal diseases.