Introduction: Neonatal mortality accounts for 44% of deaths among children. This study aimed to investigate neonatal morbidity and mortality in the neonatal care unit of the University Teaching Hospital of Parakou (CHU-P) from 2010 to 2016. Patients and Methods: This research was a retrospective, descriptive and analytical study that covered the period from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2016. It focused on the medical records of newborns hospitalized in the said unit during the period mentioned above. Study variables were sociodemographic, clinical, paraclinical and outcome. Findings: During the time span of the study, 6204 newborns were registered. Sex ratio was 1.32. Mean age for newborns was 6.01 ± 5.39 days. Clinically obvious neonatal infection (54.1%), prematurity and low birth weight (34.8%) and perinatal asphyxia (30%) were the main diseases of newborns recorded in the unit during the study period. Mortality rate was 16.8% including 77.9% occurred in the first week of life and 62.1% in the first 24 hours of life. Conclusion: More than one in six newborns died and three out of five deaths occurred in the first 24 hours of life. Therefore, it seems wise to carry out a case-control study with multivariate analysis in order to identify the main risk factors for that mortality.
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