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Introduction: The health cheque system is a prepayment mechanism aimed at reducing neonatal and maternal mortality through improving the management of pregnant women. The pregnant woman with the health cheque system that she pays at six thousand francs XAF (African financial community) is covered free of charge for all the care provided by the cheque system in the health facilities accredited to the health cheque project. We did a study, with objective to determine the hospital outcome of newborns with a health cheque system (HCS) compared to those without health cheque system. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study with retrospective data collection was carried out at the Ngaoundere Regional Hospital from January 2018 to September 2021. Results: During our study period, 2985 newborns were received. We saw an increase in admissions over the years, particularly in the group of newborns with the health cheque system. Comparatively, the percentage of newborns cured in the health cheque system group was 76.73% (n = 1643) versus 77.72% (n = 656) those in the non-health cheque system group. Those who died were 8.96% (n = 192) in the health cheque system group compared to 6.27% (n = 53) in the non-health cheque system group. Conclusions and Recommendations: Most patients admitted to our service have the health cheque system. We notice an increase in hospital attendance with the health cheque project. The outcome of the newborn under the health cheque system is not different from that without health cheque system. The health cheque system was successful in getting the larger number of newborns into care. The next step is to put strategies in place to keep these patients in care for the duration of hospitalization.

Background: Globally, preterm birth and its complications have become major public health problems as it is a major determinant of neonatal morbidity and mortality with long-term adverse health consequences. It is the leading cause of neonatal and under-5 mortality globally. In Cameroon, especially in the South West Region, there is a paucity of data as concerns preterm birth and its related morbidities and outcome. Objectives: Our objective was to determine the prevalence and hospital outcome of preterm babies at the Regional Hospital Limbe. Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study with a retrospective review of files of preterm babies admitted in the neonatology unit from the 1st January 2017 to 31st December 2020. A structured data collection sheet was used to collect information from the files. Information obtained included independent variables (gestational age at birth, gender, birth weight, hospital complications during admission, treatment received and duration of admission) and dependent variables (dead or discharge). Relationship between dependent and independent variables was tested using Pearson Chi-square. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify factors and independent associations. Result: Preterm admissions constituted 16.5% of the total admissions with a male to female ratio of 1:1.2. The common morbidities were respiratory distress 132(49.1%), hypothermia 72(26.8%), anaemia 70(26.0%), infection 65(24.2%) and jaundice 63(23.4%). The mortality rate was 31.8%. Preterm babies who had congenital malformation (AOR: 25.39;95%CI:1.80-356.38), apnoea (AOR:6.36;95%CI:1.49-27.09), respiratory distress (AOR:6.15;2.75-13.77) and anaemia (AOR:2.19;95%CI:1.07-4.50) were more likely to die compared to those who did not have these morbidities. Also, male preterm babies (AOR:2.72;95%CI:1.35-5.48) were more likely to die than their female counterparts. Conclusion: Preterm babies constituted a significant percentage of neonatal admissions at the Regional Hospital Limbe with the most frequent complications being respiratory distress, hypothermia, anaemia, infection and jaundice. The mortality rate was high, with more preterm babies dying from congenital malformation, apnoea, respiratory distress, and anaemia were strongly associated with mortality.

Background:The improvement of postnatal care has led to the increase in survival rate of preterm infants in our setting and considering their vulnerability, we set out to assess the morbidity and mortality of preterm infants 12 months after discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Methods: A retrospective cohort study was done from the 2008 to 2013 at the Yaoundé Gynaeco-Obstetric and Pediatric Hospital and included children born preterm, admitted in the NICU and discharged alive during the study period. Results: Out of 816 premature infants that were discharged alive from the NICU, only 232 (28.4%) preterm infants discharged alive presented for the routine visits during the first 12 months of life. Among these, 206 (89%) had at least one complication during the neonatal hospitalization period. Postnatal complications were significantly more frequent in infants born before 34 weeks of gestation and in babies with birth weight below 1500 grams (p<0.001). Up to 72.5% of those who came for routine visits were less than 34 weeks and 86% weighed <2000 g at birth. Seventy-six (32.7%) preterm infants were readmitted within their first year of life and the causes of readmission were respiratory tract diseases in 42 (55%), late neonatal sepsis in 19 (25.0%), malaria in 9 (11.8%) and epilepsy in 6 (7.9%). Neither the gestational age nor birth weight influenced readmission (p=0.25, p=0.590 respectively). The smaller the gestational age, the longer the duration of postnatal hospitalization (p<0.001). Conclusion: Routine follow-up after discharge remains a problem in our setting due to non-respect of appointments. Infants born preterm suffer mostly from respiratory tract diseases during the first year of life.

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