Help newborns in Tribal Gadchiroli access life-saving healthcare at home

Gadchiroli district in Eastern Maharashtra is an economically backward region, with a population consisting of mostly tribals. The district is also known for Naxalite violence. Health services are nearly absent in the district. There is a lack of proper health knowledge on pregnancy and antenatal care which results in a high proportion of infant mortality or complications during pregnancy or at birth. Many of these deaths or complications occur due to entirely preventable causes.

SEARCH’s Home-based Maternal and Newborn Care Programme trains barefoot workers, women from local communities, to provide home-based life-saving care for mothers and babies. The health workers are equipped with simple and localised medical kits and trained in topics pertaining to pregnancy, childbirth and newborn care. They deliver health education as well as provide care for pregnant women and newborns. They are equipped to intervene in the case of both high risk pregnancies and high risk newborns.

In three decades of running the program, the neonatal mortality rate in SEARCH's intervention areas is 14 deaths per 1000 live births, versus the national average of 25 deaths per 1000 live births. We have served over 17000 newborns in the community. Our home-based newborn and maternal care model has been adapted across Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi and Zambia. SEARCH has also partnered with the Union Government in India to train healthcare workers in newborn and maternal health across India. The research on HBNC was published in The Lancet and was selected by the prestigious journal as part of its Vintage Lancet volume consisting of the most landmark research papers in the field of medicine and public health.

Our aim is to ensure that no pregnant woman or newborn dies for the want of better medical facilities by equipping local communities with the knowledge to combat complications during pregnancy and child birth. In Gadchiroli, we want to continue serving mothers and newborns as we have been doing for the last 30 years.