Newborn Resuscitation in East Africa
“Neonatal resuscitation is a means to restore life to a baby… However, there is limited evidence on midwives’ and nurses’ knowledge of neonatal resuscitation in the study area”
Just last week, Yitagesu Sintayehu and a team of researchers based at Harayama University College of Health and Medical Sciences in Ethiopia published a paper in the International Journal of General Medicine outlining the gap in knowledge around newborn resuscitation and birth asphyxia in study participants. An estimated 8 million babies are born every year with a condition such as birth asphyxia, with a large portion of these occurring in low-middle income countries. This lack of oxygen at birth is often caused by an inability to clear amniotic fluid from the lungs, foetal hypoxia or even poor obstetric management and typically results in the baby requiring some form of resuscitation, including manual ventilation, to help them breathe.
In this study, 427 participants completed a comprehensive survey covering the essential components of newborn resuscitation and birth asphyxia. Participants were practising nurses and midwives in either obstetrics, maternal and child health, paediatrics or neonatal units. Incredibly, only 9.8% of the participants were deemed to have “good knowledge” about newborn resuscitation, with those who have had in-training being 3.76 times more likely to be deemed knowledgable. This echoes other research out of Kenya, Nepal, Afghanistan, Tamale, India, Ghana, and Tanzania.
Significant lack of knowledge in the study participants can be seen in the section of the survey on best practices for manual ventilation, specifically bag and mask/tube ventilation. While the majority of participants recognised that the mask must be placed to cover the mouth and nose, only 58% would check that the bag was working and even less (54%) would check and ensure the seal between the mask and face.
With around 600,000 babies estimated to die in the first 24 hours in Africa alone [1], and around 3.9 million babies in low-middle income countries dying in the first month of life, any opportunity should be taken to decrease these numbers.
This highlights the importance of proper newborn resuscitation education and training in increasing the quality, efficacy and thus outcomes of resuscitation. This is why we’re developing our Resuscitation Training Monitor. By providing feedback during resuscitation training and educating the users on the importance of having a good mask seal and delivering the right breath volume we hope to decrease this knowledge gap and prevent the death and disability of newborns who require resuscitation at birth.
