ABSTRACT
730 low birth weight [LBW] neonates and 1460 controls were selected from 13,123 neonates born from October 1988 to June 1989 in 17 hospitals and maternity units in Tehran, and were compared for mortality in the first seven and up to 28 days of life [early neonatal period]. In this study all low birth weight newborns are divided according to four sub-groups of birth weight, and the mortality within the first seven [early neonatal mortality] and up to twenty eight days of life [neonatal mortality] is examined in both groups. Part of the results are as follows: 1- low infants comprise 5.6% of total newborns, 2- 14.3% of LBW neonates die within the first seven days of life, 3- 75% of very LBW neonates [less than 1500 g] die within the first seven days of life, 4- low birth weight neonates have a mortality rate twenty four times that of normal birth weight infants in the first and fourth weeks of life, 5- neonatal mortality rate in this study was 18 per thousand