High-quality universal newborn health care is the right of every newborn everywhere. Babies have the right to be protected from injury and infection, to breathe normally, to be warm and to be fed. All newborns should have access to essential newborn care, which is the critical care for all babies in the first days after birth. Essential newborn care involves immediate care at the time of birth, and essential care during the entire newborn period. It is needed both in the health facility and at home.
Essential newborn care includes:
- Immediate care at birth (delayed cord clamping, thorough drying, assessment of breathing, skin-to-skin contact, early initiation of breastfeeding)
- Thermal care
- Resuscitation when needed
- Support for breast milk feeding
- Nurturing care
- Infection prevention
- Assessment of health problems
- Recognition and response to danger signs
- Timely and safe referral when needed
WHO/Khasar Sandag
© Credits
WHO’s work includes: monitoring and data; guidelines; quality of care and research
Monitoring and data
- Working with countries and partners to implement the Every Newborn: An action plan to end preventable deaths adopted in May 2014 in the framework of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents' Health (2016-30);
- Working with countries to strengthen the availability and quality of data on routine health care for babies
- Coordinating the development of indicators at national and subnational level to assess coverage of key indicators for essential newborn care
Related links
Guidelines
- Regularly updating clinical guidelines for the routine care of newborns
- Supporting countries to implement these guidelines
Selected guidelines
This up-to-date, comprehensive and consolidated guideline on essential intrapartum care brings together new and existing WHO recommendations that, when...
This guideline aims to improve the quality of essential, routine postnatal care for women and newborns with the ultimate goal of improving maternal and...
Training
Quality of care
- Working with partners to develop tools to improve health workers’ skills and to assess the quality of health care provided to all babies
Key publications
Much progress has been made during the past two decades in coverage of births in health facilities; however, reductions in maternal and neonatal mortality...
30 September 2020
Human resource strategies to improve newborn care in health facilities in low- and middle-income countries
Deaths in the neonatal period (the first 28 days of life) now represent nearly half (47%) of all deaths of children under 5 years, with 2.5 million neonatal...
Research
- Working with partners around the world to conduct research into interventions to improve routine newborn health care
