Birth asphyxia and its association with grand multiparity and referral among hospital births: A prospective cross-sectional study in Benin, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda.

INTRODUCTION: Birth asphyxia is a leading cause of neonatal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. The relationship to grand multiparity (GM), a controversial pregnancy risk factor, remains largely unexplored, especially in the context of large multinational studies. We investigated birth asphyxia and its association with GM and referral in Benin, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was a prospective cross-sectional study. Data were collected using a perinatal e-Registry in 16 hospitals (four per country). The study population consisted of 80 663 babies (>1000 g, >28 weeks' gestational age) delivered between July 2021 and December 2022. The primary outcome was birth asphyxia, defined by 5-minute appearance, pulse, grimace, activity and respiration score <7. A multilevel and stratified multivariate logistic regression was performed with GM (parity ≥5) as exposure, and birth asphyxia as outcome. An interaction between referral (none, prepartum, intrapartum) and GM was also evaluated as a secondary outcome. All models were adjusted for confounders. CLINICAL TRIAL: Pan African Clinical Trial Registry 202006793783148. RESULTS: Birth asphyxia was present in 7.0% (n = 5612) of babies. More babies with birth asphyxia were born to grand multiparous women (11.9%) than to other parity groups (≤7.6%). Among the 76 850 cases included in the analysis, grand multiparous women had a 1.34 times higher odds of birth asphyxia (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.17-1.54) vs para one to two. Grand multiparous women referred intrapartum had the highest probability of asphyxiation (13.02%, 95% CI 9.34-16.69). GM increased odds of birth asphyxia in Benin (odds ratio [OR] 1.37, 95% CI 1.13-1.68) and Uganda (OR 1.29, 95% CI 1.02-1.64), but was non-significant in Tanzania (OR 1.44, 95% CI 0.81-2.56) and Malawi (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.67-1.44). CONCLUSIONS: There is some evidence of an increased risk of birth asphyxia for grand multiparous women having babies at hospitals, especially following intrapartum referral. Antenatal counseling should recognize grand multiparity as higher risk and advise appropriate childbirth facilities. Findings in Malawi suggest an advantage of health systems configuration requiring further exploration.

Perceptions of surgeons on surgical antibiotic prophylaxis use at an urban tertiary hospital in Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Surgical Site Infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality among operated patients. In spite of the accessibility of universal and national guidelines for surgical prophylaxis, recent studies surveying the present routine of prophylaxis have demonstrated overutilization of a wide range antibacterial medication for a single patient. Few studies have shown qualitatively factors influencing this and perceptions of surgeons on surgical antibiotic prophylaxis use. Unfortunately, none of these studies have been done in Tanzania. OBJECTIVE: To describe the perceptions of surgeons on surgical antibiotic prophylaxis use at an urban tertiary hospital. METHODS: A qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with surgeons was conducted in English by the primary investigator. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Systematic text condensation by Malterud was used for data analysis. FINDINGS: Fourteen surgeons and obstetrics and gynaecologists participated. Their perceptions were summarized into three main categories: Inadequate data to support practice; one who sees the patient decides the antibiotic prophylaxis; prolonged antibiotic use for fear of unknown. The participants perceived that choice of antibiotic should be based on local hospital data for bacterial resistance pattern, however the hospital guidelines and data for surgical site infection rates are unknown. Fear of getting infection and anticipating complications led to prolonged antibiotics use. CONCLUSION: The study provides an understanding of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis use and its implementation challenges. This was partly expressed by unavailability of local data and guidelines to enhance practice. To improve this, there is a need of guidelines that incorporates local resistance surveillance data and enhanced antibiotic stewardship programmes. A strong consideration should be placed into ways to combat the fears of surgeons for complications, as these significantly affect the current practise with use of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis.

Implementation of a novel continuous fetal Doppler (Moyo) improves quality of intrapartum fetal heart rate monitoring in a resource-limited tertiary hospital in Tanzania: An observational study.

BACKGROUND: Intrapartum Fetal Heart Rate (FHR) monitoring is crucial for the early detection of abnormal FHR, facilitating timely obstetric interventions and thus the potential reduction of adverse perinatal outcomes. We explored midwifery practices of intrapartum FHR monitoring pre and post implementation of a novel continuous automatic Doppler device (the Moyo). METHODOLOGY: A pre/post observational study among low-risk pregnancies at a tertiary hospital was conducted from March to December 2016. In the pre-implementation period, intermittent monitoring was conducted with a Pinard stethoscope (March to June 2016, n = 1640 women). In the post-implementation period, Moyo was used for continuous FHR monitoring (July-December 2016, n = 2442 women). The primary outcome was detection of abnormal FHR defined as absent, FHR<120or FHR>160bpm. The secondary outcomes were rates of assessment/documentation of FHR, obstetric time intervals and intrauterine resuscitations. Chi-square test, Fishers exact test, t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used in bivariate analysis whereas binary and multinomial logistic regression were used for multivariate. RESULTS: Moyo use was associated with greater detection of abnormal FHR (8.0%) compared with Pinard (1.6%) (p<0.001). There were higher rates of non-assessment/documentation of FHR pre- (45.7%) compared to post-implementation (2.2%) (p<0.001). At pre-implementation, 8% of deliveries had FHR documented as often as ≤ 60 minutes, compared to 51% post-implementation (p<0.001). Implementation of continuous FHR monitoring was associated with a shorter time interval from the last FHR assessment to delivery i.e. median (IQR) of 60 (30,100) to 45 (21,85) minutes (p<0.001); and shorter time interval between each FHR assessment i.e. from 150 (86,299) minutes to 60 (41,86) minutes (p<0.001). Caesarean section rates increased from 2.6 to 5.4%, and vacuum deliveries from 2.2 to 5.8% (both p<0.001). Perinatal outcomes i.e. fresh stillbirths and early neonatal deaths were similar between time periods. The study was limited by both lack of randomization and involvement of low-risk pregnant women with fewer adverse perinatal outcomes than would be expected in a high-risk population. CONCLUSION: Implementation of the Moyo device, which continuously measures FHR, was associated with improved quality in FHR monitoring practices and the detection of abnormal FHR. These improvements led to more frequent and timely obstetric responses. Follow-up studies in a high-risk population focused on a more targeted description of the FHR abnormalities and the impact of intrauterine resuscitation is a critical next step in determining the effect on reducing perinatal mortality.