Every Newborn Action Plan

            To go along with our topic of discussion last week, maternal and child health, I discovered the "Every Newborn Action Plan" that is being implemented worldwide in order to reduce newborn deaths. The main goal of this plan is to make a significant reduction in neonatal mortality rates because they seem to be lagging behind the maternal, infant, and child mortality rates. According to the Every Newborn Action Plan website, we have the resources as well as the education and knowledge to prevent 2/3 of the neonatal deaths that occur. One of the important objectives of this action plan is to " provide everyone with a roadmap and joint action platform for the reduction of preventable newborn mortality".  The aim is to allow policy makers to hasten national plans that will allow achievable and purposeful results for newborn mortality rates. In the process, there will be targets, objectives, visions, and recommended tactical actions that will help implement the strategies in the action plan.

            This action plan is partnered up with the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health as well as the Every Women Every Child movement. There are also several other partnerships with global health organizations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization. In order to make this plan feasible, there has to be some sort of prioritization towards the issue. As seen in the Millennium Development Goals, the idea of neonatal mortality specifically wasn't addressed as an issue. The Every Newborn Action Plan sees this as a problem because of the slow rate of improvement in neonatal mortality rates compared to under-5 deaths and maternal deaths. There are currently numerous evidence-based solutions, interventions and approaches that exist to reasonably and appropriately address this issue, so there is really no reason why it shouldn't be dealt with.

            A statement about the vision of this action plan, as proposed on the website, states that, " The action plan sets out a vision of a world in which there are no preventable deaths of newborns or stillbirths, where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth celebrated, and women, babies and children survive, thrive and reach their full potential".  The website for the Every Newborn Action Plan talks about how over 3 million newborn lives could be saved each year if their plan is implemented and the targets are reached. There are 5 strategic objectives that are addressed in the plan:

1. 1.     Strengthen and invest in care during labor, birth and the first day and week of life
2. 2.     Improve the quality of maternal and newborn care
3. 3.     Reach every women and newborn to reduce inequities
4. 4.     Harness the power of parents, families and communities
5. 5.     Count every newborn through measurement, program-tracking and accountability

             These all have specific rationales that are explained even further in the action plan. I have attached it at the bottom if any of you are interested to read into it more! It is definitely a different take to maternal and child health and is worth taking into consideration.

References:

http://www.everynewborn.org/Documents/Full-action-plan-EN.pdf

http://www.everynewborn.org/every-newborn-action-plan/