Surgical Neonatal Sepsis in Developing Countries

Surgery on a newborn has been one of the most challenging subjects in medical science. A neonate is born with its unique physiological features of very narrow range of normalcy, beyond which it is helpless to cope with the adverse situations. Added to this burden, it has to be able to respond to life-threatening surgical conditions for its survival when these are present or do arise. Among several other factors, infections and sepsis remain as persistent and significant cause of mortality and morbidity among neonates. Newborns suffering from sepsis have a prohibitive mortality and persistent high mortality from sepsis remains as a challenge to neonatal surgical care. Survival following neonatal surgery has made a significant improvement in the developed countries because of better understanding of neonatal physiology, introduction of sophisticated devices, and availability of trained personnel and of course antibiotics treating infections effectively. But the situation still remains gloomy in the developing countries and sepsis remains as the predominant cause for high morbidity and mortality. Limitations in the developing countries are aplenty including dearth of skilled man power, scarcity of resources and facilities, unhygienic health delivery system including maternal and neonatal health, poverty, illiteracy and ignorance etc. [1-6]. Sepsis and other complications among surgical neonates have to be taken seriously into the main childhood health programs of the developing countries to be able to overcome the huge load on the overall economy of these countries.