Hospitalized infant morbidity in the Prospective Cohort Study of Thai Children Project.

BACKGROUND Infant morbidity causes a substantial resource burden, however, its magnitude and pattern in developing countries is still unknown. MATERIAL AND METHOD The authors prospectively followed a cohort of 2,739 children over a one-year period in three rural areas of Thailand to detect the hospitalized infant morbidity. RESULTS The incidence of morbidity was 454.9/1,000 live births. The top five morbidities were perinatal conditions, respiratory diseases, pneumonia, infectious diarrhea, and disorders related to short gestation/ low birth weight, and had an incidence of 88.7, 35.4, 34.3, 30.3, and 23.0 diagnoses/1,000 live births, respectively. They accounted for 1,973 days (76.6%) of hospital stay Of all morbidities, 34.8% occurred in the early neonatal period and 3.1% occurred in the late neonatal period. CONCLUSION The present study confirmed that perinatal conditions in the early neonatal period and pneumonia and diarrhea in the post neonatal period are still an important health problem. Further attempts for prevention and control will be needed.