Duration: 2018-2024
Location: Afghanistan, Pakistan
Reach: 37,000 pregnant women
Budget:$2.179 million (Grand Challenges Canada: $1.1 million; AKFC: $1 million; Other: 79K)
The integrated neonatal care kit (iNCK) contains a bundle of interventions that have individually been shown to: a) reduce the incidence of neonatal insults including death, infection, and hypothermia; b) provide early identification of criteria indicative of newborn danger including fever, hypothermia, or low birth weight; or c) enable the management of newborn danger signs (i.e., cold stress, moderate or severe hypothermia) until health care can be sought.
This partnership with Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) is empowering women with the tools and knowledge needed to improve their newborn’s chance of survival, through access to and use of the iNCK. Key activities include:
- Distributing the iNCK to approximately 37,000 pregnant women in Afghanistan and Pakistan using a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial
- Training existing health workers – who will subsequently train expectant mothers – on how to use the iNCK effectively
- Increasing compliance to recommended use throughout the transition to scale.
Results: