The National Newborn Week is annually celebrated across India from 15th November to 21st November to increase the awareness on the importance of newborn care for the survival and development of the newborn. The National Newborn week, dedicated to promote the reduction of newborn mortality rate in India. This was conceptualised by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The theme of National Newborn Week 2020 is “Quality, Equity, Dignity for every newborn at every health facility and everywhere”.
Objective:
To highlight the importance of newborn health as a key priority area of the health sector.
India Newborn Action Plan:
i.The India Newborn Action Plan (INAP) was launched in June 2014 at the 67th World Health Assembly(WHA), to advance the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health With the launch of India Newborn Action Plan (INAP) in 2014 India became the first country to launch an action plan for newborn care.
INAP is in line with the Global Every Newborn Action Plan(ENAP), working towards eliminating preventable deaths of newborns and stillbirth.
Target of INAP:
To reduce the preventable newborn deaths and stillbirth to single digit, less than 10 per 1000 live births by 2030, with intermediate targets for 2017(24 per 1000), 2020 (21 per 1000) and 2025(15 per 1000).
Events 2020:
On 20th November 2020, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of health and family welfare, chaired the event to mark the National Newborn Week 2020.
He released a detailed progress card on India Newborn Action Plan(INAP) (2014 – 2020) targets and roadmap plans and stated that India has achieved the targets of 2017.
Note:
According to the Sample Registration System(SRS), 2018 and United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME) estimates the newborn mortality rate of India is around 23 per 1000 live births.
Other launches:
i.Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, launched the National Newborn Week IEC posters, to spread the information and promote the behaviour change and demand generation on new-born health.
ii.He also released 2 training modules on Newborn Stabilization Unit and Newborn Care Corner to improve the capacity of the healthcare provider’s association with newborn care.
Key People at the event:
Rajesh Bhushan, Secretary, Vandana Gurnani, Additional Secretary (National Health Mission), Manohar Agnani, Additional Secretary (Reproductive & Child Health), senior officials of the Health Ministry participated in the event along with the country representative, Counsellors and presidents of all professional collaborators who joined the event over a virtual platform.
Initiatives of Government of India:
The government of India has launched various programs to ensure the survival and development of the neonates and newborns like Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan (SUMAN) scheme, National Nutrition Mission(NNM) Portal etc.
About Ministry of Health and Family Welfare(MoHFW):
Union Minister– Dr Harsh Vardhan
Minister of State(MoS)– Ashwini Kumar Choubey
