ORIGINAL ARTICLES
IMAJ | volume 28
Journal 4, April 2026
pages: 226-231
Neonatal Mortality, Trends, and Risk Factors in a Tertiary Israeli Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A 13-Year Retrospective Analysis
1 Department of Neonatology, Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot, Israel
2 Department of Pediatrics, Hadassah Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
3 Department of Neonatology, Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh), Zerifin, Israel
4 Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Summary
Background:
This study provides valuable insight on the importance of antenatal follow-up, despite advances in medical capabilities.
Objectives:
To provide current information on mortality rates and causes including demographic parameters.
Methods:
A total of 3362 infants were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Kaplan Medical Center between 2009 and 2021. Retrospective data were extracted from a computerized prospective database and further divided to two groups: 2009–2014 and 2015–2021. For sequential variables, we calculated the mean, standard deviation, and median. For categorical variables we calculated the prevalence and performed a chi-square test. The sequential variables did not show a normal distribution according to the Shapiro-Wilk test. Therefore, the A-parameter Mann-Whitney test was used. Results were considered significant when the
P-value < 0.05.
Results:
A decrease in the death rate was found, but when evaluating the infants who died, a decrease in full antenatal follow-up from 55.2% to 31.5% was seen (
P-value = 0.06).
Conclusions:
Despite advancements in medical knowledge and capabilities, an association was found between increased mortality and reduced antenatal follow-up.