This study intended to identify the determinants of infant mortality. The study use analytic matched case control design. However, it might have some limitation such as: first, recall bias on risk factors. Second, survivals of infants are related to the past whereas available measures of household income and mother knowledge are current measures. Therefore, in this study, current income is a proxy for the past year income and current knowledge is a proxy for the past year knowledge. Third, birth weight of infant was estimated by birth size as reported by mother, which is based on mother’s perception. Fourth, some variables like postnatal care, access to health care, maternal tetanus toxoid immunization status, nutritional status of mother during pregnancy, health status of mother during pregnancy and nutritional status of child were not explicitly assessed by this study. Therefore, any reader of this manuscript should take in to account the above limitations.
The analysis of breast feeding was restricted to infants older than 7 days to avoid including neonatal deaths that were not likely related to infant feeding mode; to avoid reverse causation. It was hypothesized that the time when colostrums would start to provide protection to the infant is 7 days after birth [14]. In this study the impact of breastfeeding was not analyzed because it was universal. Immunization was considered for infants lived greater than 42 days. In this study parity and birth order were perfectly similar. For this reason only birth order was used in the analysis.
In this study, maternal education is found to be not associated with infant mortality. Similar studies done in Kenya, Pakistan and Iran also showed that no significant association between infant mortality and maternal education [10, 18, 28]. However, other studies reported that there were association between mother’s education and infant mortality [11, 29]. In this study, it could be because of majority (85.4%) of mothers involved were illiterate.
Concerning maternal age at birth of the child, even though, it is in same direction with previous studies [10, 12, 18, 22, 30], it was not significantly associated in this particular study. This could be because of similarity of mother’s age distribution among both comparison groups.
Previous studies had reported significant association between fertility variable (short preceding birth interval and birth order) and infant mortality [10, 15, 18, 28–30]. Similarly in this study, the combination of a higher birth order and a shorter interval had a higher risk of dying than lower rank with a longer birth interval. Those infants whose mothers had many children were more likely to die compared to infant whose mothers had given few births. This could be related to lower maternal nutrition status due to repeated pregnancy, resource competition among siblings, lack of adequate care and attention experienced by high-ranked infants. It could also be because as family size grows the parental resources might not growth as well leading to difficulty to maintain the same level of nutrition for a larger number of children [10, 15, 18, 30].
ANC follow-up was associated with infant mortality. Those infants whose mothers had no ANC follow-up during pregnancy had twice more likely to die than whose mothers had at least one follow-up. Similarly, studies done in southwest Ethiopia, Brazil and India showed that, there is association between ANC follow-up and infant mortality [11, 16, 22]. This could be because the mothers who attended antenatal care during pregnancy are more likely to utilize existing health services and they can properly consume such services when wanted for their child [22]. Also Antenatal care protect early infant mortality through improving mothers nutritional status during pregnancy, Tetanus Toxoid Immunization, giving care to mothers health events, either chronic disease or acute disease, during pregnancy and reducing prevalence of low birth weight by improving nutritional status of mother during pregnancy [16].
Small birth size was one of the determinants of infant mortality. This had been reported by previous studies done Ethiopia, Brazil and Indonesia [11, 16, 31]. Birth size reflects the quality of care given to the mother, nutritional status of the mother and health status of mother during pregnancy [16].
Immunization practice is directly related with health status of infant. Associations had been previously reported between immunization and the risks of infant mortality [14, 15, 17, 23]. Similarly, in this study the bivariate analysis showed that immunization is associated to infant mortality. However, this analysis focuses on those infants who survived at least 42 days of age.
In this study hand washing habit with soap before feeding child was significantly associated with infant mortality. Similar finding was reported by other study done previously in Southwest Ethiopia [11].
Among behavioral factors, there was a significant association between negative perception on benefits of some modern treatment and infant mortality. This result is in line with study done previously on determinants of under-five mortality [14]. This might be because mothers who had positive perceived benefits were more likely to take or to use modern treatment and prevention methods. Mothers who had negative perception on the benefit of some treatment might seek help from traditional healer which might not be helpful for the survival of the child [14].