Abstract

Introduction: hyaline membrane disease is a health problem in the neonatal stage. Objective: to characterize the newborns admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of the General Teaching Hospital “Dr. Agostinho Neto” due to hyaline membrane disease during the years 2016-2018. Method: an observational, descriptive, prospective and longitudinal study of 163 newborns who entered the unit was made. Results: 16.4% of the infants admitted to this unit had this disease and the lethality was 11.0%. The largest proportion of these were male (55.8%), were between 31.0 and 33.6 weeks of gestational age at birth (28.2%), weighed between 1500.9 and 1999.9 g (27.0 %), had an Apgar after 5 minutes of birth between 8 and 10 points (58.9%) and were in the unit for 7 to 14 days (40.4%). 93.3% were treated with pulmonary maturation inducing drugs and 100.0% with surfactant and conventional mechanical ventilation (100.0%). 84.7% presented complications and 55.6% died from intracranial hemorrhage (55.6%). It was common for mothers to be between 19 and 35 years old (76.6%), to be ceased (65.0%) and had pregnancy-related complications (82.2%). Conclusion: lethality was higher as the gestational age and birth weight decreased, in those who were not treated with pulmonary maturation inducing drugs and who presented meningoencephalitis.

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