The densely populated Uttar Pradesh (UP) state in India is the size of France and has a massive population of over 240 million. Still, it’s toll of around 170,000 newborn deaths each year (around 28 deaths per 1000 live births) is quite shocking. 40% of neonatal deaths occur during delivery or within the first 24 hours after birth. The Community Empowerment Lab believes that 70% of these could be prevented with simple interventions without the need for intensive clinical care and they have done a huge amount of work on trying to prevent neonatal deaths.
The leading causes of newborn deaths include premature birth (35%), neonatal infections (33%), birth asphyxia (20%) and congenital malformations (9%). [https://www.drishtiias.com/state-pcs-current-affairs/child-mortality-rate-in-uttar-pradesh]
One of these simple interventions is Skin-to-skin care, also called Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). CEL’s research on the state’s KMC programme has shown fantastic results:
We went to the neonatal unit of the hospital we are teaching in to see KMC in action:
