The neonatal period (birth to 28th day of life) is the most vulnerable and high-risk time in lifebecause of the highest mortality and morbidity incidence in human life during this period. An estimated 40percent of deaths in children less than five years of age occur during the first 28 days of life (WHO, 2011a). The remaining 60 percent of deaths occur during the subsequent 1800 days of the fir...

BACKGROUND Guideline utilization aims at improvement in quality of care and better health outcomes. The objective of the current study was to determine the effect of provider complete adherence to the first antenatal care guidelines on the risk of maternal and neonatal complications in a low resource setting. METHODS Women delivering in 11 health facilities in the Greater Accra region of Ghan...

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease whose etiology is poorly understood. Recent studies suggest that early-life respiratory infections with atypical bacteria may play an important role in the induction or exacerbation of chronic respiratory disease. The current study utilized a neonatal mouse ovalbumin (OVA) sensitization model of asthma to determine the course of early-life respiratory tra...

The following report is based upon a post-mortem examination of 200 consecutive cases of still-birth and neonatal death occurring in the Royal Maternity Hospital, Edinburgh, from 1st August 1919 till October 1920. Of these, 120 were still-births and 80 neonatal deaths. The term still-birth is used in the more popular sense to include infants born dead at and after 28 weeks of pregnancy, as well...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Perinatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI) produces acute and prolonged inflammation of the brain. Mast cells (MCs), numerous in the pia and CNS of neonatal rats, can initiate inflammation attributable to preformed mediators. MCs contribute to HI brain damage in the neonatal rat; MC stabilization protects through 48 hours of reperfusion. Here we hypothesize that HI induces early MC ...

Post-licensure real world evaluation of vaccine implementation is important for establishing evidence of vaccine effectiveness (VE) and programme impact, including indirect effects. Large cohort studies offer an important epidemiological approach for evaluating VE, but have inherent methodological challenges. Since March 2012, we have conducted an open prospective cohort study in two sites in r...

RATIONALE Post-ischemic contractile dysfunction is a contributor to morbidity and mortality after the surgical correction of congenital heart defects in neonatal patients. Pre-existing hypertrophy in the newborn heart can exacerbate these ischemic injuries, which may partly be due to a decreased energy supply to the heart resulting from low fatty acid β-oxidation rates. OBJECTIVE We determine...