How to Reduce Newborn Morbidity and Mortality

We should thanks to people who work in WHO Making Pregnancy safer (MPS) Department for what they have done around the world to reduce maternal, perinatal, and newborn morbidity and mortality.

MPS's vision is a world in which skilled care at every birth is ensured for all women and in which mothers and their newborn babies notwithstanding their social, cultural, ethnic or religious background are assured access to comprehensive quality health services throughout all phases of their lives.

Every day, 1500 women and over 10 000 newborn babies die owing to complications in pregnancy and childbirth. 98% of these deaths occur in the developing world. Most of them could be prevented through skilled care during childbirth and the management of life-threatening complications.

MPS, with over 120 staff worldwide aims to reduce maternal, perinatal and newborn morbidity and mortality. MPS is working towards attaining the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 by accelerating the countries' implementation of essential interventions to make pregnancy safer. In partnership with key stakeholders, MPS also supports country efforts to strengthen their health systems.

To this end, MPS focuses on four strategic areas, in cooperation with regions and countries:

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  Advocacy: Building a conducive social, political and economic environment to support timely country actions;


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  Technical country support: Responding to country needs and providing technical support to achieve universal coverage of essential interventions that will ensure skilled care at every birth within the context of a continuum of care;


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  Partnership: Building effective partnerships across relevant programmes and partners for coordinated actions in countries;


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  Monitoring and evaluation: Strengthening assessment, monitoring and evaluation for better decision-making by policy-makers and planners in countries.
  Pregnancy is special. MPS is helping to make it safer.

Midwifery Education Modules
The six modules aim to help skilled practitioners think critically and make effective decisions on the basis of solid knowledge and understanding of these complications. When using the modules for basic midwifery programmes, it is understood that students should already be competent in most of the basic skills such as measuring blood pressure, performing a vaginal examination, conducting a normal delivery and prevention of infection.

The modules were released in 1996 and have now been updated in line with recent evidence and the WHO clinical guidelines. Each module can be taught independently of the other modules. It is however advisable to work through all of them.

Click Here for Download the Modules

Source : www.who.int