Background: The term born before arrival (BBA) encompasses the birth of any infant at ≥20 weeks of gestation and >400g birth weight before arrival at the hospital or birth centre setting. These exclude planned home births attended by a health professional.

Objective: The main objective of the study was to evaluate the born before arrivals, its occurrence, maternal and early neonatal complications in two highly turn over maternities in Yaoundé.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective case-control study at the Yaounde Gynaecology Obstetrics and Paediatric Hospital and the "Centre d’Animation Sociale et Sanitaire" at Nkoldongo district health service. We collected retrospective data for a period of five years beginning from January 2017 to January 2022 inclusive. We reviewed files of all the deliveries that occurred in the two hospitals during that period. From these files, we identified BBAs as cases and every file of a hospital delivery that occurred after the BBA was selected as control.

Results: There were 6.4%. deliveries that occurred before arrival to the hospitals. There was a significant association between the level of education and born before arrival (p<0.001). Women who were educated were less likely to deliver before arriving the hospital. The mean gravidity and mean parity were high and statistically significant among women who delivered before arriving the hospital 3.61 ± 1.84 vs 2.94 ± 1.94, (OR=1.194, 95% CI 1.042-1.368, p= 0.010) and 3.00 ± 1.43 vs 2.38 ± 1.65, (OR 1.257, 95% CI 1.070-1.477, p=0.005). The birth interval among women who delivered before arriving the hospital was shorter and statistically significant 38.42 ± 1.82 vs 54.58 ± 2.41, OR 0.984, 95% CI 0.971-0.998, p=0.024]. Hospital deliveries were more associated with live newborns (P=0.019) and a higher birth-weight (P = 0.002).

Conclusion: BBAs had adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes.