The COVID-19 pandemic response is affecting maternal and neonatal health services all over the world. We aimed to assess the number of institutional births, their outcomes (institutional stillbirth and neonatal mortality rate), and quality of intrapartum care before and during the national COVID-19 lockdown in Nepal. In this prospective observational study, we collected participant-level data for pregnant women enrolled in the SUSTAIN and REFINE studies between Jan 1 and May 30, 2020, from nine hospitals in Nepal. This period included 12·5 weeks before the national lockdown and 9·5 weeks during the lockdown. Women were eligible for inclusion if they had a gestational age of 22 weeks or more, a fetal heart sound at time of admission, and consented to inclusion. Women who had multiple births and their babies were excluded. We collected information on demographic and obstetric characteristics via extraction from case notes and health worker performance via direct observation by independent clinical researchers. We used regression analyses to assess changes in the number of institutional births, quality of care, and mortality before lockdown versus during lockdown. Of 22 907 eligible women, 21 763 women were enrolled and 20 354 gave birth, and health worker performance was recorded for 10 543 births. From the beginning to the end of the study period, the mean weekly number of births decreased from 1261·1 births (SE 66·1) before lockdown to 651·4 births (49·9) during lockdown—a reduction of 52·4%. The institutional stillbirth rate increased from 14 per 1000 total births before lockdown to 21 per 1000 total births during lockdown (p=0·0002), and institutional neonatal mortality increased from 13 per 1000 livebirths to 40 per 1000 livebirths (p=0·0022). In terms of quality of care, intrapartum fetal heart rate monitoring decreased by 13·4% (−15·4 to −11·3; p<0·0001), and breastfeeding within 1 h of birth decreased by 3·5% (−4·6 to −2·6; p=0·0032). The immediate newborn care practice of placing the baby skin-to-skin with their mother increased by 13·2% (12·1 to 14·5; p<0·0001), and health workers' hand hygiene practices during childbirth increased by 12·9% (11·8 to 13·9) during lockdown (p<0·0001). Institutional childbirth reduced by more than half during lockdown, with increases in institutional stillbirth rate and neonatal mortality, and decreases in quality of care. Some behaviours improved, notably hand hygiene and keeping the baby skin-to-skin with their mother. An urgent need exists to protect access to high quality intrapartum care and prevent excess deaths for the most vulnerable health system users during this pandemic period. Grand Challenges Canada.

Importance Delayed umbilical cord clamping has been shown to improve iron stores in infants to 6 months of age. However, delayed cord clamping has not been shown to prevent iron deficiency or anemia after 6 months of age. Objective To investigate the effects of delayed umbilical cord clamping, compared with early clamping, on hemoglobin and ferritin levels at 8 and 12 months of age in infants at high risk for iron deficiency anemia. Design, Setting, and Participants This randomized clinical trial included 540 late preterm and term infants born vaginally at a tertiary hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, from October 2 to November 21, 2014. Follow-up included blood levels of hemoglobin and ferritin at 8 and 12 months of age. Follow-up was completed on December 11, 2015. Analysis was based on intention to treat. Interventions Infants were randomized to delayed umbilical cord clamping (≥180 seconds after delivery) or early clamping (≤60 seconds after delivery). Main Outcomes and Measures Main outcomes included hemoglobin and anemia levels at 8 months of age with the power estimate based on the prevalence of anemia. Secondary outcomes included hemoglobin and anemia levels at 12 months of age and ferritin level, iron deficiency, and iron deficiency anemia at 8 and 12 months of age. Results In this study of 540 infants (281 boys [52.0%] and 259 girls [48.0%]; mean [SD] gestational age, 39.2 [1.1] weeks), 270 each were randomized to the delayed and early clamping groups. At 8 months of age, 212 infants (78.5%) from the delayed group and 188 (69.6%) from the early clamping group returned for blood sampling. After multiple imputation analysis, infants undergoing delayed clamping had higher levels of hemoglobin (10.4 vs 10.2 g/dL; difference, 0.2 g/dL; 95% CI, 0.1 to 0.4 g/dL). Delayed cord clamping also reduced the prevalence of anemia (hemoglobin level <11.0 g/dL) at 8 months in 197 (73.0%) vs 222 (82.2%) infants (relative risk, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.81-0.98; number needed to treat [NNT], 11; 95% CI, 6-54). At 8 months, the risk for iron deficiency was reduced in the delayed clamping group in 60 (22.2%) vs 103 (38.1%) patients (relative risk, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.44-0.77; NNT, 6; 95% CI, 4-13). At 12 months, delayed cord clamping still resulted in a hemoglobin level of 0.3 (95% CI, 0.04-0.5) g/dL higher than in the early cord clamping group and a relative risk for anemia of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.84-0.98), resulting in a NNT of 12 (95% CI, 7-78). Conclusions and Relevance Delayed cord clamping reduces anemia at 8 and 12 months of age in a high-risk population, which may have major positive effects on infants’ health and development. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier:NCT02222805

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Newborns are at the highest risk of dying around the time of birth, due to intrapartum-related complications. Our study’s objective was to improve adherence to the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) neonatal resuscitation protocol and reduce perinatal mortality by using a quality improvement cycle (QIC) in a tertiary hospital in Nepal. METHODS: The HBB QIC was implemented through a multifaceted approach, including the formation of quality improvement teams; development of quality improvement goals, objectives, and standards; HBB protocol training; weekly review meetings; daily skill checks; use of self-evaluation checklists; and refresher training. A cohort design, including a nested case-control study was used to measure changes in clinical outcomes and adherence to the resuscitation protocol through video recording, before and after implementation of the QIC. RESULTS: The intrapartum stillbirth rate decreased from 9.0 to 3.2 per thousand deliveries, and first-day mortality from 5.2 to 1.9 per thousand live births after intervention, demonstrating a reduction of approximately half in the odds of intrapartum stillbirth (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.32–0.66) and first-day mortality (adjusted OR 0.51, 95% CI 0.31–0.83). After intervention, the odds of inappropriate use of suction and stimulation decreased by 87% (OR 0.13, 95% CI 0.09–0.17) and 62% (OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.29–0.49), respectively. Before intervention, none of the infants received bag-and-mask ventilation within 1 minute of birth, compared with 83.9% of infants after. CONCLUSIONS: The HBB QIC reduced intrapartum stillbirth and first-day neonatal mortality and led to use of suctioning and stimulation more frequently. The HBB QIC requires further testing in primary settings across Nepal.

Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of infant mortality worldwide. Changes in PTB rates, ranging from −90% to +30%, were reported in many countries following early COVID-19 pandemic response measures (‘lockdowns’). It is unclear whether this variation reflects real differences in lockdown impacts, or perhaps differences in stillbirth rates and/or study designs. Here we present interrupted time series and meta-analyses using harmonized data from 52 million births in 26 countries, 18 of which had representative population-based data, with overall PTB rates ranging from 6% to 12% and stillbirth ranging from 2.5 to 10.5 per 1,000 births. We show small reductions in PTB in the first (odds ratio 0.96, 95% confidence interval 0.95–0.98, P value <0.0001), second (0.96, 0.92–0.99, 0.03) and third (0.97, 0.94–1.00, 0.09) months of lockdown, but not in the fourth month of lockdown (0.99, 0.96–1.01, 0.34), although there were some between-country differences after the first month. For high-income countries in this study, we did not observe an association between lockdown and stillbirths in the second (1.00, 0.88–1.14, 0.98), third (0.99, 0.88–1.12, 0.89) and fourth (1.01, 0.87–1.18, 0.86) months of lockdown, although we have imprecise estimates due to stillbirths being a relatively rare event. We did, however, find evidence of increased risk of stillbirth in the first month of lockdown in high-income countries (1.14, 1.02–1.29, 0.02) and, in Brazil, we found evidence for an association between lockdown and stillbirth in the second (1.09, 1.03–1.15, 0.002), third (1.10, 1.03–1.17, 0.003) and fourth (1.12, 1.05–1.19, <0.001) months of lockdown. With an estimated 14.8 million PTB annually worldwide, the modest reductions observed during early pandemic lockdowns translate into large numbers of PTB averted globally and warrant further research into causal pathways.

Each year 700,000 infants die due to intrapartum-related complications. Implementation of Helping Babies Breathe (HBB)-a simplified neonatal resuscitation protocol in low-resource clinical settings has shown to reduce intrapartum stillbirths and first-day neonatal mortality. However, there is a lack of evidence on the effect of different HBB implementation strategies to improve and sustain the clinical competency of health workers on bag-and-mask ventilation. This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of multi-faceted implementation strategy for HBB, as a quality improvement cycle (HBB-QIC), on the retention of neonatal resuscitation skills in a tertiary hospital of Nepal. A time-series design was applied. The multi-faceted intervention for HBB-QIC included training, daily bag-and-mask skill checks, preparation for resuscitation before every birth, self-evaluation and peer review on neonatal resuscitation skills, and weekly review meetings. Knowledge and skills were assessed through questionnaires, skill checklists, and Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) before implementation of the HBB-QIC, immediately after HBB training, and again at 6 months. Means were compared using paired t-tests, and associations between skill retention and HBB-QIC components were analyzed using logistic regression analysis. One hundred thirty seven health workers were enrolled in the study. Knowledge scores were higher immediately following the HBB training, 16.4 ± 1.4 compared to 12.8 ± 1.6 before (out of 17), and the knowledge was retained 6 months after the training (16.5 ± 1.1). Bag-and-mask skills improved immediately after the training and were retained 6 months after the training. The retention of bag-and-mask skills was associated with daily bag-and-mask skill checks, preparation for resuscitation before every birth, use of a self-evaluation checklist, and attendance at weekly review meetings. The implementation strategies with the highest association to skill retention were daily bag-and-mask skill checks (RR-5.1, 95% CI 1.9–13.5) and use of self-evaluation checklists after every delivery (RR-3.8, 95% CI 1.4–9.7). Health workers who practiced bag-and-mask skills, prepared for resuscitation before every birth, used self-evaluation checklists, and attended weekly review meetings were more likely to retain their neonatal resuscitation skills. Further studies are required to evaluate HBB-QIC in primary care settings, where the number of deliveries is gradually increasing. ISRCTN97846009 . Date of Registration- 15 August 2012.

Nepal is on target to meet the Millennium Development Goals for maternal and child health despite high levels of poverty, poor infrastructure, difficult terrain and recent conflict. Each year, nearly 35 000 Nepali children die before their fifth birthday, with almost two-thirds of these deaths occurring in the first month of life, the neonatal period. As part of a multi-country analysis, we examined changes for newborn survival between 2000 and 2010 in terms of mortality, coverage and health system indicators as well as national and donor funding. Over the decade, Nepal’s neonatal mortality rate reduced by 3.6% per year, which is faster than the regional average (2.0%) but slower than national annual progress for mortality of children aged 1–59 months (7.7%) and maternal mortality (7.5%). A dramatic reduction in the total fertility rate, improvements in female education and increasing change in skilled birth attendance, as well as increased coverage of community-based child health interventions, are likely to have contributed to these mortality declines. Political commitment and support for newborn survival has been generated through strategic use of global and national data and effective partnerships using primarily a selective newborn-focused approach for advocacy and planning. Nepal was the first low-income country to have a national newborn strategy, influencing similar strategies in other countries. The Community-Based Newborn Care Package is delivered through the nationally available Female Community Health Volunteers and was piloted in 10 of 75 districts, with plans to increase to 35 districts in mid-2013. Innovation and scale up, especially of community-based packages, and public health interventions and commodities appear to move relatively rapidly in Nepal compared with some other countries. Much remains to be done to achieve high rates of effective coverage of community care, and especially to improve the quality of facility-based care given the rapid shift to births in facilities.