The right to a healthy newborn

Abstract

A woman's right to health includes her right to a healthy childbirth and newborn, and the baby possesses his or her own right to life as well. While overall child mortality has declined, 4 million newborns still die each year, primarily in the first days of life. Most could be prevented through existing, cost-effective interventions. Field trials and programs show that low-cost, home- or community-based neonatal care can quickly lead to dramatic decline in neonatal mortality. Newborn health should be integrated with maternal and child health–and these programs should be strengthened and expanded–in order to achieve both the child and maternal survival Millennium Development Goals. Policies and programs should include participatory household and community-based care, with links to the formal health system. Despite recent attention to newborn health, much remains to be done to achieve sustained, high coverage of effective interventions, especially in poor communities where most newborns are born and die, mostly in the first week of life.