BackgroundWe examined changes in the causes and circumstances of death in our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) over 20 years.MethodsFor 551 infants who died between 1993 and 2013, the principal cause of death was recorded. Circumstances of death were assigned to one of the following four categories: death following cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), death while being mechanically ventilated without CPR, death after withholding life-support interventions, and death after withdrawal of life support. Data were compared across four 5-year epochs.ResultsThe mortality rate decreased from 5.9% in the first epoch to 3.0% in the last epoch (P<0.0001). The leading cause of death in all epochs was congenital anomalies. The percentage of deaths due to all other categories decreased or remained stable. Withdrawal of life support was the most common circumstance of death in all four epochs. Only 16% of deaths followed CPR. The percentage of neonates with documented do-not-resuscitate orders was highest in the final cohort (52%).ConclusionsThe mortality rate per admission decreased between 1993 and 2013. Each cause of death was stable or decreased as a percentage of all deaths except for deaths due to congenital anomalies. Withdrawal of life-support interventions is the most common circumstance of death in neonates.Pediatric Research advance online publication, 14 February 2018; doi:10.1038/pr.2018.1.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 August 2025.
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#10,639,773
of 32,919,153 outputs
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#2,614
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Outputs of similar age
#165,504
of 488,357 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Pediatric Research
#18
of 54 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,919,153 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 67th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,206 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 63% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 54 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
