Nestlé trains professionals on neonatal resuscitation

Nestlé’s healthcare professionals on neonatal resuscitation, Nestlé Nutrition Institute Africa (NNIA) and the Paediatric Department of the Volta Regional Hospital have provided skills to healthcare professionals involved in the delivery of new babies.

The training workshop on neonatal resuscitation brought together healthcare professionals including paediatricians, anaesthetists, nurses, and midwives who were trained with the requisite skills to help babies breathe.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) about one quarter of all neonatal deaths globally are caused by birth asphyxia, a statement from Nestlé copied to the GNA said.

The Volta Region has the highest neonatal mortality rate in Ghana, with birth asphyxia being one of the three major causes of neonatal deaths.

Effective delivery of essential interventions to help babies breathe at birth can prevent a large proportion of these deaths.

Extreme prematurity and low-birth rates are two complications of pregnancy that most frequently necessitate such interventions by skilled personnel.

Neonatal resuscitation skills are extremely important in low resource settings, where access to ante-natal care is poor and the incidence of mortality and the burden of long term impairment from birth asphyxia is highest.

Simple interventions, such as drying, warmth, clearing the airways, stimulating the breathing, and bag and mask ventilation within one minute of life, are often sufficient to save the lives of babies.

A bag and mask, essential tools in neonatal resuscitation, were given to each participating facility after the training.

Similar workshops have been organised by NNIA since 2012 in partnership with healthcare institutions and healthcare professionals associations. Over 600 healthcare professionals from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone have been trained to date.

These activities are part of our commitments to provide education programmes to healthcare professionals for the benefit of maternal, infant and young child nutrition and health and aim at contributing to the reduction of new-born mortality rates in Central and West Africa.

The NNIA is part of the Nestlé Nutrition Institute (NNI), the world’s largest private publisher of nutritional information, and it’s active in nearly 195 countries and has more than 243 000 healthcare professionals who are registered members of its educational website.

It offers nutrition education services and programmes for healthcare professionals addressing global nutrition and health concerns, the statement said.