An Assessment of Home-Based Newborn Care Plus Innovation in Six districts of Rajasthan: A Cross Sectional Comparative Analysis

Background: To improve coverage of key child health community practices, Home Based Infant Care (HBNC+) was implemented with support of Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI) in 4 States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. The innovation aimed at improving coverage of key child health interventions through home visits by community health worker, Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA). Aims & Objective: This paper elucidates the results from the assessment of implementation in intervention versus control districts of Rajasthan. Material & Methods: A cross-sectional intervention-control design with a sample size of 3211 mothers of children in age group 0 to 23 months was adopted. Results: 85 percent of the children (aged 3-23 months) received at least one infant care home visit in the intervention districts in comparison to 32 percent in control. Significant improvements were found in terms of exclusive breastfeeding, weighing and Iron Folic Acid (IFA) consumption and availability of ORS and Iron Syrup in intervention districts. 15 percent additional children had weight plotted in growth charts and 24 percent more consumed IFA syrup bi-weekly in intervention districts. Conclusion: Home visits in infancy is a scalable model and can lead to improvement of community child health practices.

India steps ahead to curb anemia: Anemia Mukt Bharat

Anemia is a major public health problem in India affecting over half of population in almost all age groups. It has devastating effect on human health and affects the socio-economic development. Government has devised several programs like National Nutritional Anemia Control Program (NNACP), Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS), National Iron Plus Initiative (NIPI) etc to combat anemia. The facts remain that in spite of all the programs, no marked improvement has been noticed in the magnitude of anemia. A holistic approach is required with special emphasis on community awareness about consequences of anaemia and benefits of Iron Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation, uninterrupted supply availability of Iron folic Acid tablets and syrups, hard to reach areas and monitoring and review system to find out adequacy in terms of participation and frequency of meetings and problem-solving in NIPI