The JA KIDS 2011 Birth Cohort study found that there were 158 neonatal deaths between July 1 and September 30, 2011.

The data, which was presented today at the JA KIDS conference at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, showed that 84 were males and 55 females, with the remaining figure accounting for babies whose sex could not be clearly identified.

Over the period, there were a total of 9670 live births.

The study states that the number of deaths works out to a neonatal mortality rate of 16.3 per 100, noting that the figure remains the same from a previous study conducted in 1986.

The study notes that the majority of the dead babies weighed between 500 and 759 grams.

Meanwhile, as it regards modes of delivery in relation to neonatal deaths, Dr Oluwayomi Olugbuyi, Cardiologist in the Department of Child & Adolescent Health University of the West Indies, Mona, disclosed that three per cent of babies died when an emergency Cartesian Section was performed.

Olugbuyi further said that one per cent died during an elective C-section and another one percent died by way of a spontaneous vaginal delivery.

The major clinical causes of death, the study revealed, were due to prematurity, respiratory distress syndrome, perinatal asphyxia, sepsis, respiratory distress and meconium aspiration syndrome.

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