EARLY ESSENTIAL NEWBORN CARE SOUTH PACIFIC NURSES FORUM 2016

BACKGROUND Early Essential Newborn Care (EENC) is a World Health Organisation (WHO) Initiative which looks to improve hygiene and infection control practices at the time of birth and to make delayed cord clamping, skin-to-skin contact and early breastfeeding the standard of care The Solomon Islands is the 7th country to adopt EENC The Solomon Islands was selected for EENC because under-5 child mortality is high compared to the rest of the WHO region

WHY FOCUS ON NEWBORN HEALTH? In the Solomon Islands a high proportion of under-5 deaths are Neonatal deaths In 2015 the Newborn Health Program was established in the RCH Division at the MHMS to focus on interventions to improve newborn outcomes, which account for 44% of under 5 mortality in the Solomon Islands.

ADOPTION OF APROACH Roll out of EENC began at the National Referral Hospital (NRH) in March 2015 All staff coming into contact with birthing mothers undergo 2 days of coaching Staff have been overwhelmingly supportive of the change in practice Mothers and staff have reported increased satisfaction with labour and birth care

BIRTH RATE AT NRH

STATISTICS

STATISTICS

CHALLENGES It has been difficult to maintain EENC practices in the operating theatre The increasing workload of labour ward means that sometimes women need to be moved before completing 90 minutes of skin-to-skin and the first breastfeed Not all aspects of the health facility strengthening component of EENC have been implemented It is difficult to properly assess the impact of EENC on neonatal health as there has been poor record keeping in the past

FUTURE DIRECTION NRH conducts regular audits of EENC practices NRH is in the process of implementing annual accreditation in neonatal resuscitation It has been identified that there is an urgent need to address issues with overcrowding in all wards at NRH There needs to be further improvement in hand hygiene practices EENC continues to be rolled out to the provinces with the aim of standardising labour and birth care across the Solomon Islands

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