Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) is an evidence-based educational program to teach neonatal resuscitation techniques in resource-limited areas. It is an initiative of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), US Agency for International Development (USAID), Save the Children's Saving Newborn Lives program, the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), and a number of other global health stakeholders.
The Golden Minute:
A key concept of HBB is The Golden Minute. Within one minute of birth, a baby should be breathing well or should be ventilated with a bag and mask. The Golden Minute identifies the steps that a birth attendant must take immediately after birth to evaluate the baby and stimulate breathing.
One part of newborn care:
The HBB curriculum is designed for use as part of a coordinated educational approach to early neonatal care and can be effectively combined with other curricula. It is much more than a classroom-based educational program. Its system-based focus is designed to change clinical practice across systems of care.
Training Materials - Laerdal Global Health has produced both print materials for trainings that follow the curriculum, as well as low-cost newborn simulators intended for use in low-resource settings. Materials can be ordered separately in any quantity desired, or as part of a training kit. The kit includes the following materials: Facilitator Flip Chart, Action Plan, Learner Workbook, NeoNatalie newborn simulator, standard accessories, and resuscitation accessories.
HBB is being implemented through a Global Development Alliance (GDA) between AAP, USAID, Laerdal Medical, NICHD, Save the Children's Saving Newborn Lives program, and USAID implementing partners. This public-private partnership works towards achieving a significant reduction in neonatal mortality by increasing the availability of resuscitation to manage newborn asphyxia during birth.
The Alliance seeks to support countries in expanding high quality resuscitation services as part of a broader package of essential newborn care, including early and exclusive breastfeeding, thermal protection, clean cord care, and early identification and management of infections and low birth weight.
Working with Global Community Service Foundation, we are reaching out to the people of rural Central Vietnam. As of today (March 26, 2015) we have taught the basic HBB course to 72 Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) and not one of them had been exposed to the program before. Some have delivered many babies, some just a few, and, today, we trained men who are in training to be TBAs, to whom these concepts were entirely new. Each person trained, has received the equipment to resuscitate newborns, and they have been trained to use it, spending a day practicing. The equipment can be cleaned and boiled so that it can be reused.
Infant mortality may be under-reported in areas where births occur at home. The local health clinics have relationships with the TBAs and are working with them to, not only report birth information, but to provide training to improve outcomes.
Decreasing infant mortality is important. Decreasing morbidity is also important. No one wants to have a baby with a disability. Rural areas in developing countries are even more challenged when there are injuries related to birth since they do not have the resources to provide the developmental care needed by such infants. Handicapped accessibility is not common and providing for a disabled infant/child becomes, in many cases, an insurmountable challenge.
Teaching HBB to TBAs, midwives, and nurses can not only decrease infant mortality but can decrease infant morbidity/disability. This is the reason we are here, doing what we are doing.
I know that many of you reading this blog, are also donors to our trip. And we thank you. Because of you we can teach all of these dedicated people and can train trainers to continue the education. Because of you we can give each trainer enough kits to go out and train 6 more people to help babies breathe and save lives. And GCSF is committed to continuing their support of the program by providing further equipment as needed and helping with data collection. We are asking the new HBB Trainers to report to their Medical Clinic Director - report education that they provide, report when they or their students use the skills and training.
On behalf of all of us working here - the HBB trainers, the GCSF Interpreters, the GCSF staff (especially Tam Nguyen) - we thank you.
Harriet
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