Causes for Admission, Mortality and Sepsis Profile of Babies Admitted to Special Care Baby Unit of Teaching Hospital Batticaloa, Sri Lanka

Background and Objective: Special Care Baby Units (SCBUs) offer treatment for babies at high risk for survival. This study targeted to identify causes for admission, mortality and sepsis profile at SCBU of Teaching Hospital Batticaloa (THB), Sri Lanka. Methods: A descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted among 1356 babies admitted to SCBU of THB, Sri Lanka from January/2023 to December/2023. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, indications for admission and morality were collected from the records. Ethical approval was obtained from Ethics Review Committee, Faculty of Health-Care Sciences, Eastern University, Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using SPSS version 26.0. Results: The major reason for admission was suspected sepsis (n=469,34.6%) followed by prematurity (n=171,12.6%) and neonatal jaundice (n=156,11.5%). Most of the babies (n=1265, 93.3%) were discharged while nearly six percentage died (n=80,5.9%), A minority of babies (n=11,0.8%) were transferred to the other institutions for further care. Pulmonary haemorrhage (n=31,14.1%) was the leading cause for mortality followed by birth related complications (n=29,13.2%) and congenital deformities (n=28,12.7%). Among 738 blood cultures collected during the period studied, majority was negatives (n=675,91.5%) while 3.8% revealed a significant positive (n=28). Coliforms (13/28,46.4%) was the major causative organism for sepsis, followed by Acinetobacter sp (10/28,35.7%). These findings revealed though sepsis was the common indication for admission to SCBU, only around 4% blood cultures revealed a significant positive growth. Further, pulmonary haemorrhage was the major cause for mortality among neonates.