Stories | Clean hands saved newborns’ lives in our hospitals: A responsibility for All

Do you ever recall eating food without washing your hands after leaving the restroom? That uneasy feeling is exactly what a newborn would feel if they could speak when we touch them without observing hand hygiene. Their silence does not mean they are okay. Their fragility demands our vigilance to keep them safe.

Small and sick newborns often require frequent handling during invasive procedures like respiratory support and intravenous therapy. Prolonged hospitalization creates multiple opportunities for transmitting healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and other preventable harm. For these newborns, patient safety is not just another additional activity but a necessity for survival.

As we commemorate World Patient Safety Day 2026, I write this opinion piece on behalf of the voiceless — the newborns who cannot speak for themselves to remind us to wash our hands before handling them. They cannot demand clean care, but their survival depends entirely on our actions. The most basic, evidence-based practice to prevent harm is also the simplest: washing/sanitizing our hands every time before and after we touch a baby under our care. The same hands that heal and protect neonates can, if hygiene is neglected, become the very hands that harm and kill.  Available evidence shows that compliance to hand washing remains below desired levels.

Think about how many times have you handled newborns. How many times did you wash your hands in each instance while either feeding, examining, administering medication, cleaning, changing diapers — each of these moments is an opportunity for either helping or harming the baby. It’s up to us to decide yet often, excuses creep in: “There was no water.” “There was no soap.” “I was in a hurry.” “Oops, I forgot”. But excuses only harm these vulnerable ones whose care is entrusted to us. Every touch matters and   every second counts. A neonate’s immune system, unlike yours and mine, is not strong enough to resist infectious agents that linger all over our environment. What we dismiss as “small lapses” may become deadly. When we remember the vulnerability of these tiny babies, excuses fade, and responsibility takes center stage.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the “Five Moments for Hand Hygiene”: before touching a patient, before clean/aseptic procedures, after body fluid exposure, after touching a patient, and after touching patient surroundings. For newborns, these moments are even more critical. Their vulnerability means every lapse carries a huge risk.

Hand hygiene must become more than a reminder; it must be a culture, a habit, a reflex. And we must ensure that every caregiver, every health care provider, and every visitor understand this truth. Clean hands are lifesaving hands. The experience of the NEST360 program in Kenya demonstrates that hand hygiene compliance is achievable when it becomes a focused priority for well-designed quality-improvement change ideas.

Hand hygiene is not just any other human behavior — it is about systems that require a culture of safety in which every team member to feel responsible for sustained improvement of hand hygiene compliance.  Through our advocacy of resources, leadership has a critical role to ensure the resources- soap, water, disposable hand towels, and hand sanitizers are always available and adequate. The walls must talk with simple, clear reminders about hand hygiene, not just about how, but about why hand hygiene is key to the safety of neonates. Teams must make hand hygiene as non-negotiable routine by changing the culture of forgetfulness and being in a hurry. Every one of us must hold each other accountable by shamelessly reminding them “please wash your hands before touching”.

On this World Patient Safety Day, let us commit to a culture of “regular hand washing, peer accountability, and a ban to shortcuts and culture of silence. The survival of our newborns depends on these simple but lifesaving actions. Their safety rests in our hands. Remember how we did it during COVID-19 epidemic? We changed our habits when lives were at stake. This is a call for similar vigilance and discipline to protect the smallest among us, the voiceless, our newborns, our future.