The introduction of a Mother Baby Friendly Health Facility Initiative(MBFHI) has improved neonatal care and reduced neonatal deaths among children between zero- to-one week in four districts of the Upper East Region, deputy Director of Nursing and Services In-Charge of Public Health Rufina Asuru has said.

She  said the major causes of neonatal deaths like premature births and congenital abnormalities have reduced with the introduction of the initiative in the four district, namely,The four districts are Bolgatanga Municipal, Bawku Municipal, Kassena-Nankana and Bongo districts.

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'we realized that most of the new born babies who die, die  within the first day of delivery up to the first week of life so there was the need to focus on the survival of the mother and baby between labor and immediately after birth,” she said.

The initiative which started the last quarter of 2015 includes identifying and dealing with labor related complications, by initiating early skin-skin breast feeding, giving medication geared at reducing neonatal deaths.

Mrs. Asuru lauded UNICEF for their support in the provision of equipments, capacity building trainings and other logistics to improve maternal and neonatal care in the region. UNICEF representative of the MBFHI, Dr. Priscilla Wobil said, the initiative which is being piloted in Ghana, Bangladeshi and Tanzania will end in September 2018. She expressed satisfaction at the strides made and admonished health professionals to work hard  to extend to other districts and sustain the initiative.