AbstractContext: The improvement in perinatal care has led to increase in survival as well as morbidity in sick newborns. Babies discharged from NICU need to neurodevelopmental (ND) follow ups and rehabilitation. Aims: To assess the neurodevelopmental outcome of NICU discharged babies in follow up clinic. Settings and Design: A Retrospective Observational Study at High Risk Follow up clinic of a Tertiary Care Hospital. Methods and Material: Data was collected from follow up clinic of level III NICU of tertiary care hospital running since 6 years. Risk categorization at enrollment and neurodevelopmental assessment were done till 6 month age. The AmielTison Method and Denver Development Screening Test were used. Assessments were done according to the follow up protocol. Various neonatal morbidities like Hypoglycemia, Acute Bacterial Meningitis, Asphyxia, RDS, ventilation more than 7 days, IVH Grade 2 etc were considered for analysis. Statistical Analysis Used: MS EXCEL & IBM SPSS (version 2015). Results: Out of 1704 infants enrolled, 345 (19.9%) were having a High risk of neurodevelopmental delay. Only 644 (37.7%) followed up at 3 months, numbers reduced to 366 (21.4%) at 6 months. Babies with risk factors of Prematurity, Hypoglycemia, ventilation more than 7 days & IVH Grade 2 were more likely to have the neurodevelopmental delay. Conclusions: Attrition in follow up percentage warrants active follow up interventions. Early developmental screening necessary for all NICU discharged babies irrespective of risk category.
Keywords: Follow up; NICU Discharged Babies; Neonatal Morbidities; Neurodevelopmental Outcome.