De-worming during pregnancy in Nepal: an effect on neonatal mortality

Abstract

Background: The Ministry of Health and Population, Nepal has been administering the de-worming medication (with tablet albendazole) to pregnant women aiming at reducing maternal anemia and neonatal death since 2001. The neonatal mortality has remained stagnant for the past decade. The effect of de-worming during pregnancy on neonatal mortality is not known yet.

Methods: This study is based on the database of Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS) 2006 and 2011. This study includes the recent singleton live births within five years preceding the survey as the de-worming medication during the pregnancy was collected only in the recent live births (the last live birth) in the five years preceding the surveys. The newborn death of the pregnant women administered with de-worming medication was compared with those pregnant women who were not administered with de-worming medication during the pregnancy. An association has been established with the logistic regression model adjusting several potential confounding factors.

Results: In the pooled data, the recent singleton live births were 8,147. A total of 813 and 2,274 mothers were found to have taken de-worming medication during pregnancy in the NDHS 2006 and 2011, respectively. The use of de-worming during pregnancy increased from 20% to 56% between the surveys, but the newborn deaths in de-worming group rose from 1.2% to 1.4%. The adjusted OR of the neonatal death with the de-worming was {aOR 1.129 (95% CI 0.696-1.829), P = 0.623}.

Conclusion: The de-worming during pregnancy in Nepal was not found significantly associated with reduction on neonatal deaths, which suggests timely review of the program.