Helping Babies Breathe (HBB)

Collaborators signed a global public-private alliance to launch the initiative as part of the annual meeting of the Global Health Council, which included a daylong training session with 100 international advocates who will bring training materials back to their home countries. The core message these HBB collaborators wish to communicate: When a baby is born and is not breathing, simple techniques like rubbing the baby dry, keeping the baby warm, and suctioning the baby's mouth may be all that is needed to save a life. Even more babies can begin to breathe on their own after just a few breaths from a simple ventilation device.

In order to act as a catalyst to increase skilled attendance at birth, build linkages between communities and health facilities, and strengthen health systems, HBB has developed the concept of "The Golden Minute". Within one minute of birth, a baby should be breathing well or be ventilated. Culturally sensitive learning materials use pictures to illustrate the steps a birth attendant must take immediately after birth to evaluate the baby and stimulate breathing. Realistic newborn simulators, boilable bag-mask ventilation devices, and boilable bulb suction devices will be made available at cost to 63 countries participating in Millennium Development Goal 4.

HBB can be offered as an independent educational programme or together with other training. Details on the training strategy are available on the HBB website.

An ongoing mentorship programme aims to provide: expert assistance, implementation guidance, knowledge exchange, integration and evaluation support, and continuous quality improvement for sustained practice outcomes and decreased infant mortality.

As of this writing, the materials have been tested in 5 pilot sites in Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Pakistan, and Tanzania. In fact, Bangladesh rolled out the HBB training programme nationally, reaching a total of 25,460 skilled birth attendants (SBAs) in all 64 districts of the country, including 3,000 private sector SBAs. Post-training reviews and follow-up meetings were completed in all 64 districts with the involvement of district/sub-district level managers and supervisors. Review finding shows that 83% of skilled birth attendants had resuscitation devices, 81% of them were cleaned appropriately, and 66% of the provider used the device in the previous week. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare expanded this effort and adapted the suite of modules to develop a Comprehensive Newborn Care Package that includes capacity-building and skill retention for service providers and supervisors, ensuring availability of supplies, establishing routine monitoring and reporting systems, strengthening supervision and mentoring support for quality improvement, social and behaviour change communication (SBCC), and incorporating indicators into the national health management information systems.

Child Survival.

WHO estimates that 1 million babies die each year from birth asphyxia, or the inability to breathe immediately after delivery. Approximately the same number of stillbirths each year is linked to events during labour. A significant percentage of these may be liveborn babies who simply do not breathe or move at birth, but could be resuscitated with simple measures. Neonatal mortality, or death in the first month of life, accounts for more than 40% of child mortality worldwide.