STUDY OF BIRTH RELATED FACTORS AND INCIDENCE OF ARI AMONG INFANT IN SLUM AREA OF MEERUT

*Arun Kumar, S. K. Garg and H. Chopra

ABSTRACT

Every year about 12 million children in developing countries die in first five year of life. Acute respiratory infections (ARI) are responsible for 19% of these deaths.[1] The situation in India in very much same as is most other developing countries. Therefore, it is a appropriate that we review the progress that has been made and plan strategies to reduce this high mortality.[2] Objective: to find out birth related factors and Incidence of ARI in Infants in slum of Meerut. Method: cross sectional study. Results: the overall fortnightly ARI incidence in Infants was 55.0%. The incidence of ARI was found to be lower in infants of birth order one (46.0%) compared to infants of birth order four and above (70.3%). Incidence of ARI among infants was higher (64.4%) in those infants having birth weight less than 2.5 kg than those infants having > 2.5 kg birth weight (31.1%) The incidence of ARI was higher in infants born at home (59.3%) than those having institutional delivery (42.6%). The incidence of ARI was minimum (16.4%) in infants who were delivered by doctor and maximum (78.2%) in infants who were delivered by an untrained Dai.

Keywords: ARI, fortnightly Incidence, LBW, birth order, untrained dai.