Neonatal deaths now account for around 46% of the under-5-years-old deaths and must be addressed to accelerate progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) [
1‐
4], because one of the targets under SDG3 is to reduce the neonatal mortality to 12 per 1000 livebirths by 2030 [
5]. While neonatal deaths have fallen from 5 to 2.5 million from 1990 to 2017, the annual rate of reduction in neonatal mortality over this period (2.6% per year) is much lower than that for children aged 1–59 months (3.7%) [
1]. Among live-born babies, the risk of death is greatest on the first day of life–about 1 million deaths a year and 36% of all neonatal deaths [
2]. Many of these deaths are caused by birth asphyxia or failure to establish breathing at birth. Excluded from these deaths are the estimated 1.3 million intrapartum or “fresh” stillbirths [
6] who are not breathing at birth and for some reasons, are subjected to either inadequate or no resuscitation at all. For all these reasons, there is an intense global focus on interventions for the estimated 10 million babies requiring assistance to initiate breathing [
7,
8].
Around 85% of babies born at term initiate spontaneous respiration within 10 to 30 s of birth, an additional 10% require initial steps such as tactile stimulation or airway clearing or positioning [
9‐
13] and approximately 3% require positive-pressure ventilation by bag and mask [
11,
13‐
15]. Training in these basic resuscitation measures should be able to salvage 90% of the babies that do not initiate spontaneous respiration and is most needed in low resource settings where there is inadequate access to intrapartum and immediate post-partum care [
13,
16,
17]. Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) is a simple hands-on training curriculum in basic newborn resuscitation for birth attendants [
18]. The training focuses on appropriate resuscitation skills to be used within the first 60 s of life (the Golden Minute) including timely delivery of the essential interventions such as drying, providing warmth, and clearing the airway, providing additional stimulation to breathe and bag and mask ventilation, if needed. In past, studies have attempted to quantify the impact of resuscitation on new-born outcome and have shown the benefits of resuscitation training on newborn outcomes, including the Bang et al. study in which resuscitation training in India reduced the asphyxia-related mortality by 65% (
p < 0.02, [
19]). Carlo et al. used a “train-the-trainer” model to sequentially train midwives in urban, community health clinics in Zambia in Essential Newborn Care (ENC) and in the American Academy of Pediatrics Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP), and found a decrease in the all-cause 7-day neonatal mortality rates from 11.5 to 6.8 deaths per 1000 live births after ENC training, which was further lowered by NRP training. Recently the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research, and Research Triangle International (RTI) as the data coordinating center, conducted a pre-post study to evaluate the impact of HBB implementation in facilities serving rural communities (Maternal and Newborn Health Registry (MNHR)) located at three Global Network research sites - Nagpur and Belgaum in India and Eldoret in Kenya [
18,
20]. MNHR enrolls pregnant women and records maternal and neonatal outcomes in catchment areas of rural primary health centers (study clusters). An additional file shows the flow diagram for the Nagpur Site of the Global Network HBB Implementation Study (GN-HBB-IS) [See Additional file
1]. All the births in the community based MNH registry were analyzed in the GN-HBB-IS. Around 45% of these did deliver in HBB trained facilities but rest delivered outside in other facilities. GN-HBB-IS did not find any effect of HBB implementation on day 7 perinatal mortality (PMR-D7). There are two plausible reasons for the failure to observe a reduction in PMR-D7 after facility-based health workers were trained in HBB implementation. Firstly, the reduction in PMR-D7 was estimated in all deliveries of pregnant women enrolled from the communities served by the trained facilities, not just those who delivered in HBB trained facilities. Secondly, the pre training period overlapped with the period of HBB training that was carried out in a step wise manner across the facilities and could have already started to reduce PMR-D7 in the pre-HBB implementation period (Table
1 and Additional file
1).
Table 1
Comparison between the Nagpur-HBB-FS and the Nagpur Site of the GN-HBB-IS
Study Population | • All births in 13 of the 15 facilities that had participated in the GN-HBB-IS whether they belonged to the MNH registry area (around 11%) or not. | • All births in the GN MNH Registry whether delivered at facilities that participated in the GN-HBB-IS (around 45%) or at other facilities that did not receive HBB training and implementation. |
Inclusion Criteria | • All stillbirths included | • Only fresh stillbirths included |
Exclusion Criteria | • Miscarriage • Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) | • Miscarriage • Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) • Birth weight < 1500 g • Missing birth weight • Macerated stillbirths |
Facility HBB Training Period | June 2012 to October 2012 |
Pre HBB data collection Timing | • April 2011 – March 2012 | • November 2011–October 2012 |
Post HBB data collection Timing | • November 2012–October 2013 | • November 2012–October 2013 |
Outcomes | • PMR-D1 – (All stillbirths + day 1 neonatal mortality) • All stillbirths • NMR-D1 (Day 1 neonatal mortality) | • PMR-D7 (only fresh stillbirths + day 7 neonatal mortality) • Only fresh stillbirths • PMR-D1 (only fresh stillbirths + day 1 neonatal mortality) |
Data Source | • Pre-existing standard facility records like birth and mortality registers | • GN MNH Registry data collection forms |
Since the GN-HBB-IS was not designed to evaluate facility based changes in day 1 perinatal mortality (PMR-D1), we planned this facility based study (Nagpur-HBB-FS) and collected data from the Nagpur facilities participating in GN-HBB-IS before any training had commenced and after the GN-HBB-IS training had been completed for all the births in the facilities irrespective of whether or not they belonged to the MNH registry. Our objective was to evaluate PMR-D1 in births occurring in facilities pre- compared to post- GN-HBB-IS implementation.