BACKGROUND The Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) and Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality targets cannot be achieved without high quality, equitable coverage of interventions at and around the time of birth. This paper provides an overview of the methodology and findings of a nine paper series of in-depth analyses which focus on the specific challenges to scaling up high-impact interventions an...

MCHIP’s Dr. Goldy Mazia is a Pediatrician/Public health physician with ample global newborn health experience. Dr. Mazia successfully practiced pediatrics in Colombia and in Israel for many years, before opting for a career in public health, where she has been recognized as a leading global expert. She serves as a newborn health expert on panels and in trainings around the world, including: the...

Globally, prematurity is the first cause of death in children under five. In absolute terms, almost one million babies die because of prematurity each year, mostly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The risk of death increases with decreasing gestational age and with poverty. It is estimated that neonatal mortality could be reduced by 19% if all neonates could experience similar mortality ra...

BACKGROUND Kangaroo mother care has been highlighted as an effective intervention package to address high neonatal mortality pertaining to preterm births and low birth weight. However, KMC uptake and service coverage have not progressed well in many countries. The aim of this case study was to understand the institutionalisation processes of facility-based KMC services in three Asian countries ...

Rooming-in care is a method for the care of newborn infants in which the baby stays with the mother in the same room, the mother takes care of her baby by herself, and the nurses and doctors help her care for her baby in the room. The World Health Organization has emphasized the importance of rooming-in, saying that the pattern of nursing for the first 3 days after birth has a significant effec...

Although, for centuries, women of many cultures have carried infants against their breasts, KMC was ‘rediscovered’ in Bogota, Columbia in 1984 by neonatologists Edgar Rey and Hector Martinez 1 . Due to non-availability of incubators, they adopted KMC for preterm and LBW babies who were otherwise stable and needed only to feed and grow. KMC is now successfully applied in many industrialized and ...

AIM Kangaroo mother care (KMC) is a nonconventional low-cost method of newborn care. Our aim was to assess the effect of sustained KMC on the growth and development of low birthweight Indian babies up to the age of 12 months. METHODS We enrolled 500 mother and baby pairs, in groups of five, in a parallel group controlled clinical trial. The three infants with the lowest birthweight in each gr...

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a serious public health issue. Kangaroo mother care (KMC) is widely considered to be the most feasible, readily available and preferred intervention for decreasing neonatal morbidity and mortality in developing countries. We conducted a prospective study to assess the effect of KMC on PPD. The study population included 177 low-income mothers with their preterm inf...