From January to October 2023, the Upper East Regional Hospital in Bolgatanga lost 25 low birth weight babies, according to Dr. Gillian Bogee, Head of the Newborn Care Unit.
She said that 530 of the 1152 preterm infants admitted to the unit during that time were low birth weight.
“We lost 25 of these low-birth-weight babies out of the 530, and these 25 of the low-birth-weight babies that passed on were not actually on the Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC).
“They were on the ward being managed for other serious medical conditions, and some were also referred from the neighbouring facilities into the Regional Hospital with serious medical conditions,” she explained.
During the hospital’s World Prematurity Month celebration launch this year, Dr. Bogee made this announcement in a press interview.
The month of November is usually celebrated as prematurity month, and this year’s celebration was on the theme: “Small Actions, Big Impact: Immediate Skin-to-Skin for Every Baby Everywhere.”
Premature babies were the second most common reason for admission among the 1200–1500 newborns that the Unit admitted each year, according to her.
“Almost half of the babies we received at the Newborn Care Unit were low birth weight babies,” she said.
Dr Bogee, who is a Paediatrician, emphasized the need for expectant mothers to take Ante-Natal Care (ANC) services seriously, saying “We know that it is during the ANC that all these complications are picked up.
“So, if expectant mothers do not attend the ANC, their Blood Pressures are not checked, urine proteins are not done, the mothers live unhealthy lifestyles, and that can even make the uterine environment very unfavourable for the baby,”
It may predispose expectant mothers to preterm delivery, according to Dr. Bogee, who emphasized the significance of ANC attendance.
“Everything starts from the ANC. If they do not really start the ANC early, or they do not go for the ANC at all, that is when they have some of these complications,” the Newborn Care Unit Head said.
Dr. Bogee conveyed his appreciation to the Unit’s employees for their commitment to work, the Regional Health Directorate, the hospital’s management, UNICEF, KOICA, JICA, BONABOTO-UK, CRS, Fountain Gate Chapel, Action Chapel International, and all the charitable people and organizations that have supported the Unit over the years.
The hospital’s medical director, Dr. Aiden Suntaa Saanwie, stated that although the Newborn Care Unit faces difficulties, it has made some progress since its establishment in 2014.
“Key among them is the establishment of a KMC Unit. When we started, we had just a three-bed capacity, now we have a 10-bed capacity Unit, which is an expansion. The KMC is an important cost-effective way of managing premature babies,” he said.
KMC is the act of putting a baby skin-to-skin on the mother in a kangaroo position.
Dr Saanwie said preterm babies were prone to various kinds of infections, and should be effectively managed, “So we as an institution have developed clear protocols which guide how we manage these cases.
“The most recent one was when we managed a baby that was delivered at 26 weeks. That is the record in this hospital,” the Medical Director said and further used the occasion to appeal for more baby incubators to augment the six functioning incubators in the Newborn Care Unit.