Low levels of care-seeking for newborn illness in low- and middle-income countries

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Abdullah Baqui from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA and colleagues systematically review studies describing newborn care-seeking behaviours by caregivers in low- and middle-income countries. The study's findings highlight the lack of a standardized and consistent approach to neonate care-seeking behaviours described in the literature. Despite the large variations in results, care seeking for newborn illnesses in LMICs appears to be low in general and remains a key challenge to improving neonatal mortality.

The authors state: "To bring about sustainable improvements in neonatal survival, changes are needed to both increase the demand for newborn care and strengthen health care systems, such as improving access and quality of care and socio-economic inequality through education and literacy initiatives."