Redouble Efforts to Promote Child and New-Born Health

Despite the strides made in improving new-born health in Ghana over the past five years, a lot more remains to be done, Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, Deputy Director, Reproductive and Child Health, Family Health Division, Ghana Health Service, has noted.

Dr Sagoe-Moses, who was addressing the media at a dissemination seminar on the National New-born & Child Health Advocacy & Communication Strategy in Accra on Friday, August 31, 2018, said 44% of the global 2.9 million under-five deaths take place in the new-born period, notwithstanding evidence-based interventions and a great potential to reduce avoidable new-born deaths.

She said In Ghana, new-born deaths accounted for over 40% of all infant deaths, the vast majority of which deaths (75%) occurred during the first week of life, with 50% occurring in the first 24 hours.

She, therefore, called for a sustained advocacy to keep new-born health issues high on national agenda and to mobilise the needed resources to scale-up proven interventions to ensure that new-borns survived and thrived.

In a statement at the opening of the seminar, Dr Gloria Quansah, Deputy Director-General, GHS, said it was, therefore, in an effort to address the situation by reducing neonatal mortality rate from 32 per 1,000 live births in 2011 to 21 per 1,000 live births in 2018 (5% annually) and to help reduce the institutional neonatal mortality rate by, at least, 35% by 2018 that a New-born Health Strategy and Action Plan (2014-2018) was developed.

Dr Quansah said among the key strategies outlined in Ghana's New-born Health Strategy and Action Plan (2014-2018) is promoting Advocacy, Communication and Social Mobilisation (ACSM) and other community-based interventions.

The New-born Health Strategy, she said, mandated the development of a focussed advocacy and communication strategy in support of the implementation of the New-born Health Strategy and Action Plan at both the facility and community levels, coupled with specific community-based interventions, including community mobilisation and home visits.

She said the goal of the Advocacy and Communication Strategy-- Ghana National New-born and Child Health Advocacy and Communication Strategy and Year One Work Plan (2015 - 2019)-- was to position new-born and child deaths as a national emergency requiring immediate and urgent joint stakeholder/sectoral action from the national level to the community level, in an effort to achieve the goal of the National New-born Health Strategy to reduce the neonatal mortality rate from 32 per 1000 live births in 2011 to 21 per 1000 live births in 2018.

Dr Quansah explained that as a support strategy to the Child and New-born Health Strategy, the implementation of the Advocacy and Communication Strategy would follow the same management arrangements as reflected in the New-born Health Strategy.

She disclosed that neonatal mortality rate in Ghana had been reduced from 32% per 1,000 live births in 2014 to 25% per 1,000 live births in 2017 which, she said, was significant, but reiterated the need for sustained efforts to ensure the survival of new-borns.

In July 2014, Ghana launched the National Newborn Health Strategy and Action Plan 2014-2018 to provide a framework for accelerating the reduction of newborn deaths in Ghana.

The Newborn Health Strategy and Action Plan was developed as a roadmap for reducing newborn deaths from 32 per 1,000 in 2011 to a target of 21 per 1,000 in 2018, representing a 5% annual reduction in newborn deaths, and for reducing institutional new-born deaths by, at least, 35% by 2018.

This Strategy tackles the three leading causes of new-born deaths, which are infection, prematurity and asphyxia.

On the other hand, the Ghana National Newborn and Child Health Advocacy and Communication Strategy and Year One Work Plan (2015 - 2019), simply referred to as the Newborn Advocacy and Communication Strategy, was developed to strengthen advocacy, communication and social mobilization, and other community-based interventions that contribute to improved newborn and child health.

The Strategy and Work Plan recommends that or full term babies, 2.5 kg and above, bathing should be delayed for the first twenty-four hours after birth, while low birthweight babies and preemies should not be bathed until so advised by the midwife or paediatrician.

The Strategy and Plan also recommends that breastfeeding should start within 30 minutes after delivery and that the baby should remain only on breast milk from birth till six months.

It also recommends that mothers visit the health facility two times in the first week after birth for both baby and mother to be examine and treated if necessary.

According to the Strategy and Work Plan, mothers should start giving a variety of other foods at six months and continue breastfeeding until the child is, at least, two years old.

The Strategy and Work Plan requires that at birth, new-born babies should be given two vaccines against TB and polio and the child's immunization should be completed before the child is two years old.

For health workers, the Strategy and Work Plan recommends that the baby should be wiped immediately after birth using a soft, clean and dry cloth; wrapped with another clean, dry cloth to keep the baby warm; breast feeding should be initiated within thirty minutes after birth; Chlorhexidinegel should be applied on the cord immediately after cutting; and the cord must be kept clean and dry and that the baby should be kept in skin-to-skin contact with the mother for at least one hour.

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