Improving Newborn Survival in Low-Income Countries: Community-Based Approaches and Lessons from South Asia

Obstacles to improving survival include: many newborn infants are invisible to health services; care-seeking for maternal and newborn ailments is limited; health workers are often not skilled and confident in caring for newborn infants; and there are inequalities across all these factors. The best community-based approach is a combination of community mobilization and home visits by community-based workers. Both timing of visits and treatment interventions are critical.