Mother Provided Essential Care: The Power of Mothers in Infant Care in Low Resources Countries

The period from birth to one year is highly vulnerable. Nearly three million babies die worldwide within the first month with prematurity, pneumonia, and birth asphyxia as the leading causes. To address this, a newborn care training program targeting health care providers (HCP) called Helping Babies Survive (HBS) was developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. HBS addresses essential HCP interventions that support the needs of at-risk full term, preterm, and low-birth weight babies. Despite the success of HBS, there remains a limited number of HCPs in many low resource countries to provide the consistent care needed by at-risk babies. Due to low HCP-to-patient ratio, the burden of ongoing assessment and intervention often falls on the mother (e.g., feeding of expressed breast milk via cup, skin-to-skin contact). However, mothers are inadequately trained compared to HCPs, creating a knowledge gap in how to improve their babies’ chances of surviving and thriving. The current study will utilize a mixed method approach to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of a complementary HBS module to train mothers in essential newborn care. First, a needs assessment will be conducted using focus groups of mothers and HCPs at an international HBS Center to assist in identifying educational needs and priorities of the module. Once the mothers’ module has been created, we will evaluate the acceptability and impact with mothers (n=60) who have recently given birth to a preterm or at-risk newborn in a HBS Centre using a pre-post test design. Mothers and HCPs will provide feedback on the acceptability of the module as well as impact data will be collected on neonatal outcomes (e.g., mortality, temperature, growth) and maternal outcomes (e.g., confidence, knowledge on essential care) before and after receiving the training. It is anticipated that this module will reduce the burden on HCPs and optimize newborn outcomes.