AbstracBackground: Children are the promise and the future of every nation, being the core of its development. Investing in children's health and development means investing in the future of a nation. Child mortality is a critical measure of the wellbeing of children and a good proxy indicator of the overall level of development. In-depth analysis of death of children provides valuable information. Objective: The objective of the study was to find out different causes of under five mortality in tertiary care center at Government Medical College and hospital, Latur, Maharashtra. Methods: This Study design was retrospective record based cross sectional study. 1 year data from January 2015 to December 2015 was studied. All under five deaths occurred in admitted children in Government Medical college and hospital, Latur during the study period were included in the study; The causes of deaths were studied and ICD-10 was applied. The data was analyzed using appropriate statistical tool. Results: Total patient admitted in pediatric department in year 2015 were 4524. Total under five admitted were 2942 of this 1952 (57.44%) were males and990 (42.56%) were females. Male: Female admission ratio was 1.97. Total deaths in under five were 257.The major causes of mortality were found to be infection (29.96%), respiratory distress syndrome (12.84%) prematurity (11.28%) birth asphyxia (08.94%). Conclusion: This study identified infections, respiratory distress syndrome, prematurity, birth asphyxia, meconium aspiration syndrome as major causes of mortality of under five children. Improving antenatal care, maternal health and timely referral of high risk cases to tertiary care hospital will help to improve outcome.

Keywords: Under five mortality, ICD-10, medical records.