Recently, Rice360 fellow, Natalie Mitchell, traveled to Kenya to work with our colleagues at Nairobi to begin a clinical study on Celsi Monitor, a low-cost portable device used to continuously monitor a newborn’s body temperature. The following is her account of her time in Kenya.
The Comprehensive Newborn Care Protocols provide guidance on newborn care to clinicians and nurses. These protocols in this handbook are underpinned on the ‘Newborn Care Quality Statements’ outlined in this handbook.
World Prematurity Day is an international day to raise awareness for babies who are born too soon. This year with partners around the world we highlighted Kangaroo Mother Care. Preterm birth continues to be the leading contributor to under-5 deaths globally, being responsible for almost half of all under-5 deaths in 2021. Immediate initiation of Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) has shown to significantly decrease newborn mortality. Skin-to-skin contact’s benefits includes improved thermal regulation, infection prevention, improved breast feeding, positive facilitation of physiological, behavioral, psychosocial, and neurodevelopment, and a reduced risk of neonatal mortality.
A summary of activities from quarter 3 and quarter 4 in each NEST360 country. Our teams have made incredible progress this year towards sustainability and institutionalizing NEST in small and sick newborn care.
Lecturers and mentors who attended the Newborn ETAT course also had the opportunity to participate in the Generic Instructor Course (GIC) on May 4-6, 2022, in Nairobi, Kenya. The GIC provides training to potential instructors in how to teach providers course material. GIC attendees learn the principles of teaching adults in different learning environments through lectures, demonstrations, discussions, and interactive practice sessions. The skills learned in GIC are beneficial beyond life support courses and can inform all teaching.
This quarter, the NEST Kenya team led biomedical training at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya. Biomedical training focuses on providing biomedical engineers and technicians with skills in proper repair and maintenance of NEST technologies during planned preventive and corrective maintenance.
“We are very proud of what we have been able to achieve even in the face of a pandemic. The virtual interactions we have with healthcare workers in the newborn units has created an atmosphere of positive change in newborn care in Kenya. We, however, must move this from head knowledge to hands on practical skills through mentorship. Real transformation occurs during mentorship, and this cannot be done virtually—it has to be face to face”