What will you do for Every Newborn?
A nurse helps a new mother to practice Kangaroo Mother Care in Blantyre, Malawi. Photo: Eldson Chagara/Save the Children
In recent months, you may have heard about Every Newborn. What is it? A report? A movement? A new flavor of ice cream?
Every Newborn is a new movement to bring greater attention to the links between reproductive, maternal and child health, focusing on care and prevention of newborn mortality, which now represents 43 percent of all deaths of children under age five. Taking forward the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, Every Newborn focuses specific attention on newborn health - identifying actions for improving their survival, health and development. It builds on the recommendations of Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed for Child Survival (APR) and links to the ongoing work under Every Woman, Every Child.
As part of this movement, a wide group of partners, led by UNICEF and WHO, are writing an action plan to guide global and national change for newborns. The report will be called Every Newborn: an action plan to end preventable deaths and is expected to be released at the World Health Assembly 2014.
A series of national, regional and global consultations are taking place as part of Every Newborn to encourage multi-stakeholder analysis and action along with supporting countries in Every Woman, Every Child and A Promise Renewed. The results of these consultations will support the implementation of sharpened national plans and will feed into the development of this global action plan for newborn health to stimulate greater policy action and investment. Tools have been developed to help countries identify bottlenecks, challenges and solutions, and stimulating further discussion around newborn programming in countries.
This week there will be a major Asian regional consultation will be held in Kathmandu, Nepal with representatives from government, UNICEF, WHO and civil society. Special events for Every Newborn have also taken place at Women Deliver, the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Africa Regional Conference, and the recent African Union Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Conference in Johannesburg.
The Every Newborn Toolkit was developed to provide practical support to all those engaged in this process or wanting to know more. The Toolkit has four sections and includes multiple resources, including:
- Overview of Every Newborn: cover letter, advocacy brief, key messages and proposed actions
- Consultation process and events: consultation overview, calendar of events
- Tools to conduct a country consultation: overview of newborn health tools, maternal and newborn bottleneck analysis tool (New!)
- Other materials to support consultation process: draft outline for consultation, multiple PPTs, country fact sheets, library of newborn health resources
Now that you know what it is, what will you do for Every Newborn?
Learn more at http://www.everynewborn.org/
*Original article posted By Mary Kinney, Data and Comminications Specialist, Save the Children; South Africa. See it HERE.