Maternal Education, Prematurity and the Risk of Birth Asphyxia in Selected Hospitals in Jakarta

Abstract

Background: Birth asphyxia can causes hypoxic ischemic organ damage in neonates. According toadvanced Indonesian Basic Health Research 2007, asphyxia was the second highest cause of infant deathafter infection (13.8%). This study aimed to identify several risk factors associated with birth asphyxia.Methods: This study was carried out in one government and one private hospitals in Jakarta. All medicalrecords of pregnant women who gave birth between January 1 to December 31 of 2011 were included.Birth asphyxia was defined as an Apgar score less then seven at one minute after birth. Logistic regressionwas used to analyze the risk factors related to birth asphyxia.Results: As many as 2777 samples out of 4191 were included for this analysis. The proportion of asphyxiain newborn babies was 6.5%. Compared with those who had high educated mothers, those who had loweducation level had 4.3-fold higher risk to have an asphyxiated baby [adjusted odds ratio (ORa) = 4.31;P=0.000]. Meanwhile middle educated mothers had 3.3-fold higher risk to have birth asphyxia (ORa=3.31;P=0.000). In terms of gestasional age at birth, compared with those who had full term birth, those who hadpreterm birth had 3.1-fold higher risk to have birth asphyxia (ORa=3.07; P=0.000). Meanwhile, althoughnot significant, those who had postterm birth had 63% more risk (P=0.118) to have birth asphyxia.Conclusion: The mother who had lower and middle education levels as well as preterm babies had higherrisk for having birth asphyxia baby. (Health Science Journal of Indonesia 2015;6:111-5