Government Schemes for New Born Child and Child Health

Facility Based New Born Care

• Facility Based New Born Care (FBNC) is one of the key components under the National Health Mission to improve the status of newborn health in the country.
• A continuum of new born care has been established with the launch of home based and facility based new born care components ensuring that every new born receives essential care right from the time of birth and first 48 hours at the health facility and then at home during the first 42 days of life.
• New Born identified as sick or preterm /low birth weight soon after birth or during home visit are referred to special new born care facilities for further management and long term follow up after discharge.
• New born Care Corners (NBCCs) are established at delivery points to provide essential new born care at birth, while Special New born Care Units (SNCUs) and New born Stabilization Units (NBSUs) provide care for sick new born.
• As on December 2016, a total of 14,135 NBCCs, 1,810 NBSUs and 550 SNCUs have been made operational across the country.

Janani Shishu Suraksha Yojana (JSSK):

Complete elimination of out of pocket expenses with provision of free transport, drugs, diagnostics and diet to all sick new born and infants is being ensured in the country. About 12 lakhs sick infants availed services under JSSK till December, 2014 in 2014-15.

Ensuring Injection Vitamin K in all the births in the facility.

• All the public and private health facilities should ensure single dose of Injection Vitamin K prophylaxis at birth even at the sub centre by ANM.

National Training Package for Facility Based New Born Care.

• The scheme has been developed with participation of national neonatal experts in the Country. This package will improve the cognitive knowledge and build psychomotor skills of the medical officers and staff nurses posted in these units to provide quality new born care.

India New born Action Plan (INAP).

• On 18th Sept 2014, India New Born Action Plan was launched in response to Global New Born Action Plan.
• INAP lays out a vision and a plan for India to end preventable new born deaths, accelerate progress, and scale up high-impact yet cost-effective interventions.
• INAP has a clear vision supported by goals, strategic intervention packages, priority actions, and a monitoring framework. For the first time, INAP also articulates the Government of India’s specific attention on preventing still births.
• With clearly marked timelines for implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and scaling-up of proposed interventions, it is expected that all stakeholders working towards improving new born health in India will stridently work towards attainment of the goals of “Single Digit Neonatal Mortality Rate by 2030” and “Single Digit Still Birth Rate by 2030”.

Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres

• Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres are facility based units providing medical and nutritional therapy to children with Severe Acute Malnourished under 5 years of age with medical complications.
• In addition, special focus is on improving the skills of mothers on child care and feeding practices so that child continues to receive adequate care at home.
• Expansion of NRCs has been ensured in High Need Areas such tribal blocks. A total of 875 NRCs has been established in the country as on September, 2014.
• The training package for facility based care of Severe Acute Malnutrition in Children has been developed to train staff of Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres on diagnostic and treatment protocols.
• The package aims to improve the clinical skills of the Medical Officers and Nursing staff of NRCs, particularly for the management of children with SAM (Severe Acute Malnutrition).

Rashrtiya Bal Swasthya Karyakaram

• The initiative was launched in February 2013 for Early Child Health Screening and Early Intervention Services through early detection and management of 4 ‘D’s i.e. Defects at birth, Diseases, Deficiencies, Development delays including disability are to cover 30 selected health conditions for early detection, management and free treatment.
• An estimated 27 crore children in the age group of zero to eighteen years are expected to be covered across the country in a phased manner.
• As on December 2016, a total of 5418 RBSK teams have been recruited.
• About 12.19 crore children have been screened and 60.8 lakhs children have been referred to health facilities for the treatment. About 16.8 lakhs children have received secondary and tertiary care.
• A total of 445 State level master trainers and 2429 Teams from 9 States were directly trained by the National RBSK Team.