Prevalence and associated factors of birth asphyxia among live births at Debre Tabor General Hospital, North Central Ethiopia

Background: More than one third of the neonatal deaths at Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Debre Tabor
General Hospital (DTGH) are attributable to birth asphyxia. Most of these neonates are referred from the maternity
ward in the hospital. Concerns have also been raised regarding delayed intrapartum decisions for emergency
obstetrics action in the hospital. However, there has been no recent scientific evidence about the exact burden of
birth asphyxia and its specific determinants among live births at maternity ward of DTGH. Moreover, the public
health importance of delivery time and professional mix of labor attendants haven’t been addressed in the prior
studies.
Methods: Hospital based cross sectional study was conducted on a sample of 582 mother newborn dyads at
maternity ward. Every other mother newborn dyad was included from December 2019 to March 2020. Pre-tested
structured questionnaire and checklist were used for data collection. The collected data were processed and
entered into Epidata version 4.2 and exported to Stata version 14. Binary logistic regressions were fitted and
statistical significance was declared at p less than 0.05 with 95% CI.
Results: The prevalence of birth asphyxia was 28.35% [95% CI: 26.51, 35.24%]. From the final model, fetal malpresentation
(AOR = 6.96: 3.16, 15.30), premature rupture of fetal membranes (AOR = 6.30, 95% CI: 2.45, 16.22),
meconium stained amniotic fluid (AOR = 7.15: 3.07, 16.66), vacuum delivery (AOR =6.21: 2.62, 14.73), night time
delivery (AOR = 6.01: 2.82, 12.79) and labor attendance by medical interns alone (AOR = 3.32:1.13, 9.78) were
positively associated with birth asphyxia at 95% CI.
Conclusions: The prevalence of birth asphyxia has remained a problem of public health importance in the study
setting. Therefore, the existing efforts of emergency obstetric and newborn care should be strengthened to prevent
birth asphyxia from the complications of fetal mal-presentation, premature rupture of fetal membranes, meconium
stained amniotic fluid and vacuum delivery. Moreover, night time deliveries and professional mixes of labor and/
delivery care providers should be given more due emphasis.