Neonatal deaths in our country are increasing at an alarming rate. Prematurity is the most common cause of neonatal deaths in Bangladesh.
Now to tackle this, Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is introduced. It is a service where infants are being carried, usually by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact. Breastfeeding has been made highly recommended worldwide for stable low-birth rate newborns. Treatment with special care newborn units is also proved to be very cost effective in preventing these untimely deaths.
Officials should install community health workers in rural
areas to raise awareness on the risks of house-based
deliveries. Deliveries in health facilities should also be
carried out under the supervision of skilled health workers
Most of the premature babies are likely to have low birth weight and they also die because of it. In our country, most government health facilities do not even have simple infant weighing scales. Therefore, immediate measures should be taken by the government to provide necessary equipment in the health facilities.
As mentioned earlier, it is an effective service in preventing premature deaths and is also considered an easy and low cost intervention.
In Bangladesh, most of the baby deliveries in rural areas are still carried out in-house. Awareness should be raised within the communities to carry out baby deliveries in health facilities.
This is because delivering in a health facility always increases the survival rate of a newborn, especially for those women who are at risk of premature birth. Officials should install community health workers in rural areas to raise awareness on the risks of house-based deliveries. Deliveries in health facilities should also be carried out under the supervision of skilled health workers.
Therefore, if all these methods are implemented thoroughly, then the death rate among infants will decrease significantly.