Thank you for visiting Save the Children's Web site on newborn health. Through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Saving Newborn Lives program has been working to prevent newborn illness and death among babies most at risk of dying in Asia, Africa and Latin America since 2000. Our mission centers on working with partners — here in the U.S. and globally — to improve newborn health and survival so that millions of babies do not die every year from easily preventable and treatable causes.

Newborn deaths are one of the world's most neglected health problems. Despite gains in other health areas in developing countries, there has been virtually no progress in reducing mortality rates for babies during the first month of life.

Every year, 4 million babies die in the developing world. These statistics are even more unsettling when we realize that most of these deaths are completely preventable.

Low-cost and easily accessible interventions such as immunizing women against tetanus and providing a skilled attendant at birth could reduce newborn deaths by as much as 70 percent if provided universally. Other simple approaches that can mean the difference between life and death for these babies include immediate and exclusive breastfeeding, prompt treatment of newborn infections and education about proper hygiene and warmth for infants.

Since its inception, the Saving Newborn Lives program has made a demonstrable impact on improving newborn health practices, reaching more than 20 million mothers and babies in need with essential services.

In collaboration with our partners, we have successfully implemented practical and cost-effective newborn health interventions in remote, seemingly inaccessible settings to significantly reduce infant deaths. For instance, in Sylhet, Bangladesh, we collaborated with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and John Hopkins University to bring about a 33 percent reduction in newborn mortality by promoting home-based care of newborns, including infection treatment. And in partnership with Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), we trained community midwives across various project sites in Indonesia to reduce newborn deaths due to birth asphyxia by as much as 47 percent.

With continued support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we are now working hard with countries and our partners to identify and promote the large-scale adoption in 18 countries to expand access to proven, low-cost interventions and approaches that address the three main killers of newborns — infections, asphyxia and low birth weight/prematurity.

Improving the health of the world's poorest citizens, especially it's most vulnerable and powerless — like the newborn — is a global health challenge that confronts us of all today. Let us move forward together to meet this challenge and ensure a healthy future for mothers and children everywhere.

-Massee Bateman
Director, Save the Children's Saving Newborn Lives Program

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