ABSTRACT
Background: Initial years of life are crucial for child growth and development.' Breast feeding for first six months of life, followed by adequate complimentary feeding is necessary for preventing malnutrition and its complication in children. This study accessed the complementary feeding practice and the time of initiation of complementary feeding among infants.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted for 3 weeks, among 92 infants. Details of feeding practice were taken from the parents from semi-structured questionnaire and nutritional status was evaluated by anthropometric assessment tools.Results: Ninety-two mothers were interviewed, and their corresponding infants were evaluated. The mean age of infant was 8.8 months with equal proportion of male and female. The mean age of mother interviewed was 26.6 yrs. 59.8% had timely initiation of complimentary feeding. Timely complimentary feeding was directly related to maternal literacy where literate mother follows the practices of appropriate complimentary feeding (p<0.007). There was significant association between ethnicity and timely initiation of complimentary feeding practices. 78.2 % babies who had timely initiation were of higher ethnicity. Overall in our cohort 18.4% were stunted, 14.1% were wasted. The stunted and wasted child were significantly more in whom there was absence of timely initiation of complimentary feeding (p<0.05).Conclusions: Proper complimentary feeding is still lagging in our society, proper parental education and nutritional counselling will be required to prevent under nutrition in infants.
ABSTRACT
Aims: To study the diagnoses and survival of neonates receiving mechanical ventilation. Study Design: Prospective observational study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine; B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Dharan, Nepal, from February 2012 to January 2013. Methodology: All the neonates who received mechanical ventilation in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) during the study period were included. We excluded the neonates with surgical malformations. Data were entered in a pre-designed pro forma and statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 17 for Windows Results: A total of 88 neonates were ventilated during the study period of which 65 met the inclusion criteria. Birth asphyxia (34%), neonatal sepsis (31%), meconium aspiration syndrome (MAS) (20%), congenital pneumonia (11%) and hyaline membrane disease (HMD) (5%) were the diagnoses of babies who received mechanical ventilation at our center. Overall survival rate was 50.8%, as 33 patients survived. The highest survival rate was seen in babies admitted with birth asphyxia (68.2%) and the lowest survival rate was seen in neonates with an admission diagnosis of sepsis (30%). Mean Downes score for respiratory distress at intubation in non-survivors was significantly higher compared to Downes score in non-survivors (P value = .003). Mean oxygen saturation before intubation in non-survivors was significantly lower than the oxygen saturation in survivors (P value = .001). Conclusion: Birth asphyxia, sepsis and meconium aspiration syndrome were the common diagnoses of neonates who received mechanical ventilation. Neonates with lower Downes score and higher oxygen saturation at the time of admission were associated with decreased mortality rate.