Q&A on Saving Newborn Lives Through Agency Health Program
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Is it true that babies in some countries are not named until they reach one month of life?
In many rural communities in Africa and South Asia, naming ceremonies may not take place for as long as six weeks after birth to ensure that a baby has safely survived the early weeks of life, when so many deaths occur. Only then is the child recognized as a member of the community. Sadly, this practice is a coping mechanism by families to deal with the tragic but all too commonplace experience of losing a baby.
Why is Save the Children focusing on saving newborn lives?
Each year, at least four million babies die during the first month of life, representing 40 percent of all deaths to children under five. While death rates among all children under 5 have declined in recent decades, newborn death rates have changed very little.
We don’t need to discover a cure or pay for high-tech equipment to reduce these newborn deaths. In fact, in March 2005, the leading international medical journal The Lancet released a landmark series of research papers on newborn survival that underscores this point. The Lancet research shows that we could save three million of these young lives by introducing proven, low-cost measures for newborns into communities and households. Measures such as tetanus-toxoid vaccinations and counseling in nutrition, breastfeeding, and danger signs help mothers improve their chances of delivering and raising healthy babies. Measures such as educating mothers and family members about the importance of postnatal check-ups, wrapping a baby for warmth, hygienic practices, and exclusive breastfeeding help newborns grow stronger and more resistant to infection.
With a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, Save the Children embarked on a global initiative to save newborn lives that – to date – has reached 20 million mothers and babies with essential newborn health services. A new grant, awarded by the Foundation in December 2005, will allow us to expand this initiative to 18 countries in Africa and Asia that are the most hard-hit by newborn deaths.
What do you mean by the “two-thirds rule” and how does it influence your approach to saving newborn lives?
The “two-thirds rule” is shorthand for describing the pattern of death among infants. The riskiest time of death for infants is during their earliest hours and earliest days.
- Almost two-thirds of infant deaths occur during the first month of life
- Among those who die in the first month of life, about two-thirds die in the first week of life
- Among those who die within the first week, two-thirds die in the first 24 hours.
By promoting a package of health care measures -- care during pregnancy, care during childbirth, immediate care for the baby, and continued and routine visits with a trained health care provider -- we can help prevent these needless young deaths.
Our newest grant from the Gates Foundation will focus on saving the most vulnerable babies – those in the first week of life.
Save the Children launched a global effort five years ago to prioritize and improve the survival and care of newborns in developing countries. Any progress to report?
While five years time is too short a timeframe to report a global decrease in newborn deaths, the measures that Saving Newborn lives has introduced are contributing to improved newborn health, and we expect over time to see more babies surviving in these communities.
We are seeing a positive shift in behavior and an increase in skills for newborn care among mothers, health workers and entire communities. For example, in the communities where we work in Bolivia, we have seen the number of babies born at home who receive care within one week after birth increase from 30 percent to 57 percent, and from 18 percent to 55 percent at program sites in Bangladesh. In Pakistan, where we worked with UNICEF on an immunization campaign to eliminate maternal and newborn tetanus, the number of reported cases have dropped by half (to 14,000 last year).
How do the statistics of newborn deaths in developing countries compare with the U.S.?
More than a century ago, the United States was where developing countries are today in terms of newborn deaths. But remarkable improvements in health care for mothers and babies have improved their survival. Today, the differences in newborn deaths between the United States and developing countries are startling. For example, a mother in Africa is 25 times more likely to see her newborn die than a mother in a developed region of the world, like the United States.
What effect does your experience as a mother who gave birth through the U.S. health care system have on your work?
In the United States, where we take medical care for granted, it’s hard to understand how risky it is to give birth if you live in Asia or Africa. Like most American women, I was cared for by a doctor who delivered my babies in a well-equipped hospital. However, most women in developing countries deliver at home with the assistance of only a mother-in-law or an untrained traditional birth attendant.
Seeing the needless deaths of newborns and mothers has always made me want to share with women in other countries what I had when I had my daughters – proper care during pregnancy, childbirth, and after delivery. Women the world over deserve to give birth with joy as I did, not with fear that they may die or lose their baby.
