Time to regain birth weight and its predictors among preterm neonates admitted at neonatal intensive care unit in Amhara Regional State Comprehensive Specialized Hospitals, Ethiopia: retrospective follow up study.

Background: Newborns often lose 7-10% of their birth weight during the first week of life; however, term babies typically regain this weight in 7-10 days, whereas preterm babies typically do so in 10-15 days. Regaining birth weight is an essential developmental milestone and significantly influences their overall health outcomes. Research from the past has concentrated more on the degree of birth weight growth than its causes. Then this study aims to determine the time to regain birth weight and its predictors among preterm neonates admitted at neonatal intensive care unit in Amhara Regional State Specialized Hospitals, Ethiopia.

Methods: An institution-based retrospective follow-up study was carried out using data spanning three years. All preterm newborns admitted to Amhara Regional State Comprehensive Specialized Hospitals' NICU whose gestational age is less than 37th weeks or birth weight less than 2500gram served as the source populations and also who were admitted to the NICU between July 8, 2019, to June 7, 2022. Sadly, this study did not include preterm newborns with incomplete daily weight records, those admitted after one week of life, the neonates transferred to another institution before completing the study follow-up, or those with significant congenital defects that interfered with eating. From the total of eight public Comprehensive Specialized hospitals, four Comprehensive Specialized hospitals were included in this study. Approximately 363 preterm babies were recruited using a simple random sampling technique and followed up until 28 days of age. Data were extracted using a checklist from neonatal medical records folders and STATA Version 17 software was used for data analysis. The Cox --Proportional Hazards Model was used to evaluate predictors of regaining birth weight, with a P-value of < 0.05 deemed statistically significant.

Result: In a study including 363 preterm newborns, it was the median time to regain birth weight was 18 days, and 59.2% of them did so during the follow-up period. Regain birth weight was found to be significantly predicted by birth weight, mode of delivery, and daily average weight gain.

Conclusion: Based on the study's findings, it appears that preterm neonates take a long time to regain their birth weight. The study identified the mode of delivery, birth weight, and daily average weight gain as significant predictors for birth weight regain among preterm neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit.