epidemiological survey of prematurity in gonbad-e kavous in golestan province

background and purpose: prematurity birth occurs when a newborn is born before the thirty seventh week of pregnancy. preterm birth is the most expensive and the most common health problem. so, the aim of this study was to do epidemiological survey of prematurity in gonbad-e kavous in 2010. materials and methods: this sectional- descriptive study was carried out on 172 premature babies with census method. a questionnaire was made with α= 0.873 to collect the data. the data were analyzed with spss software, descriptive statistics and poisson regression. results: the incidence of prematurity was 41.04 at live births per 1,000 and the mortality rate of prematurity based on all births at live births per 1,000 was 7.78 in 2009. in 2007 and 2008, the mortality rate of prematurity based on all births at live births per 1000 was 10.74 and 7.08, respectively. the villages of baghlimara, gadomabad, aghabad, gharemohammadtapeh, chaighoshan, agribaghaz, soltanali, taghiabad, gonbad1, gonbad 6, bibishirvan had the highest maturity rate in 2009-2010, respectively. the most focused was in the south and southeast villages and broader line villages had the lowest rate of prematurity. conclusion: the majority of mothers who had preterm birth did not have appropriate nutrition, economic and social situations. in terms of education, 61% of them were at primary level that can have effect on their knowledge and practice. therefore, increasing knowledge rate and changing diet in pregnancy care and paying more attention to related organizations in improving their livelihood are recommended.