Perinatal Risk Factors for Neonatal Bleedind at the Muhimbili National Hospital Dar-es-Salaam; Tanzania

This incident case-control study of bleeding neonates in a Baby Friendly Hospital was done to obtain the prevalence and risk factors associated with bleeding disorders in the neonatal unit. During a 4-month period from August to November 1998; 175 out of 1628 admitted infants were found to have some sort of bleeding. These were compared with 414 control infants. Prematurity; Low Birth Weight; Caesarian Section and anesthesia; and presence of asphyxia were significantly associated with bleeding. The Prothrombin and Activated Partial thromboplastin Test were not significantly altered in bleeding infants and had a poor correlation with clinical presence of a bleeding disorder.The low prevalence of bleeding disorder and coagulation defects is discussed and suggested that Breast Feeding may not be a risk factor for bleeding disorder in this unit. Further studies are needed in this regard

Morbidity and mortality among low birth weight infants in Muhimbili medical centre; Dar es Salaam; Tanzania

In this paper we present and discuss the problems of low birth weight infants. Although we did not have a control group of normal babies it seems from our results that LBW babies are particularly prone to health problems as 34.5 percent of the cases admitted to the neonatal unit were morbid