Save the Children

Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth features the first-ever estimates of preterm birth rates by
country and is authored by a broad group of 45 international multi-disciplinary experts from 11 countries, with almost 50 organizations in support. This report is written in support of all families who have been touched by preterm birth. This report is written in support of the Global Strategy for Women’s and children’s health and the efforts of every Woman every child, led by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Premature babies can be saved now with feasible, cost-effective care
•     Historical data and new analyses show that deaths from preterm birth complications can be reduced by over three-quarters even without the availability of neonatal intensive care.
•     Inequalities in survival rates around the world are stark: half of the babies born at 24 weeks (4 months early) survive in high-income countries, but in low-income settings, half the babies born at 32 weeks (two months early) continue to die due to a lack of feasible, cost-effective care, such as warmth, breastfeeding support, and basic care for infections and breathing difficulties.
•     Over the last decade, some countries have halved deaths due  to preterm birth by ensuring frontline workers are skilled in the care of premature babies and improving supplies of life-saving commodities and equipment.

Download the PDF to read this comprehensive report.

Authors: March of Dimes, PMNCH, Save the Children, WHO. Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth. Eds CP Howson, MV Kinney, JE Lawn. World Health Organization. Geneva, 2012.

• Born Too Soon (PDF)
  

Since 2001, Malawi has achieved a 29 percent decline in newborn deaths—from 19,000 per year to 17,000 per year in 2010. In those 10 years, Save the Children, with the support of its many donors, has made significant contributions toward this achievement.

Teaching Others How to Save a Life
Save the Children and partners have trained and supported over 1,700 frontline health workers—often people with little formal education but who are respected in their communities. These health workers counsel mothers, detect life-threatening conditions in newborns and refer them to health facilities when necessary. Today, frontline health workers deliver community-based maternal and newborn care in nearly two-thirds of Malawi’s districts.

Caring for a New Baby
Local customs can sometimes be at odds with what is best for baby and mother, which is why Save the Children promotes and teaches essential newborn care. It starts with prenatal care and includes checkups for newborns in the first two days after birth, when most newborns are at greatest risk. Frontline health workers also educate mothers and caregivers in how to care for their newborns. Today, essential newborn care provides the foundation for Save the Children’s newborn health programs in 18 countries.

Saving Babies Born Too Early or Too Small
“Kangaroo Mother Care” is the whimsical name for an effective way to care for low birth weight and preterm babies. Wrapping a baby skin-to-skin against its mother’s chest (like a kangaroo’s pouch), keeps it warm, encourages breastfeeding and bonding, and prevents infections. Save the Children has promoted Kangaroo Mother Care in Malawi since 2002, and today more than 100 health facilities use this approach. We are working with the government of Malawi to take this practice nationwide.

Additional funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is allowing
Save the Children to analyze results and lessons learned from Malawi’s decade-long program and continue to promote newborn health around the world. 

Melinda Gates in Malawi
In 2010, Melinda Gates visited a district hospital supported by Save the Children in Dowa, Malawi, where Save the Children has trained frontline health workers. Here is a brief excerpt of her assessment of that visit.

“I also visited one of the cities there, Dowa, where the women are going into the facilities just as the government has told them. In fact, the women are going up to four weeks ahead of the birth of their baby. That’s really important because they are then avoiding birth complications that might happen to them out in the village or on the road. I met about 40 women who were waiting at the Dowa district hospital, and it was so interesting to talk to these women. They are such palpable evidence of the real impact these changes are having. And I literally saw mothers and babies that would not be alive today if it weren’t for the improvements that Malawi has been making in these areas.”

Listen to Melinda Gates’ complete impressions of her visit to Malawi atwww.gatesfoundation.org/videos.

Links:

• Results for Children - Online Annual Report

• PDF of Report (PDF)