IN HOSPITAL CLINICAL COURSE AMONG EXTREMELY LOW BIRTH WEIGHT BABIES ADMITTED IN A TERTIARY CARE CENTRE IN NORTH KERALA-A RECORD BASED STUDY

Extremely low birth weight (ELBW) newborns, those babies weighing less than 1 kilogram at birth belongs to a unique group with increased morbidity and mortality. A retrospective hospital record based study was conducted in a tertiary care center in North Kerala over a period of 2 months to study the immediate postnatal events among extremely low birth weight babies and their maternal risk factors. Among the 55 babies included in this study, the survival rate is 63.6 % which is comparable to other Indian studies. Most common morbidity observed is respiratory distress syndrome and second most common is neonatal jaundice. Among maternal risk factors, abnormal antenatal Doppler is the most frequent entity.