Vol. 7, Issue 1, Part B (2025)

Background: Birth asphyxia essentially is delay in starting spontaneous respiration on delivery of a newborn. More specifically, birth asphyxia is the presence of hypoxia, hypercapnia, and acidosis leading to systemic disturbances in the newborn.

Aim of the study: To determine the incidence, and antepartum and intrapartum risk factors of neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy in Al−Yarmuk Teaching Hospital, and study the impact of these risk factors on the outcome of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy.

Patient and Methods: In a retrospective cohort study of 70 singleton infants ≥32 weeks of gestation born at Al-Yarmuk Teaching Hospital from 1st January 2019 to 31st May 2021, we identified all recorded neonates who had been admitted to neonatal intensive care unit with HIE based on Apgar score of ≤7. We ascertained antenatal and intrapartum complications from records.

Results: The overall hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy incidence in Al-Yarmuk center is 2.6 per 1000 live birth. We found that the most frequent causes of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy was prolonged second stage labor (31.4%), instrumental delivery by ventous (11.4%), pregnancy induced hypertension (11.4%), meconium stained amniotic fluid (10%), DM mother (8.6%) and APH (7.1%), and most cases were product of vaginal delivery.

Conclusion: This study demonstrated that early neonatal mortality due to hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy is correlated significantly with low APGAR score (<3). GA, birth weight and maternal risk factors were not associated with increasing the mortality rate.