The Child Health Division under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has released operational guidelines for planning and implementation of Family Participatory Care (FPC) to improve health of newborns at Special Newborn Care Units (SNCUs) in the country.

The guidelines, uploaded on the official website of the National Health Mission (NHM), provide a setting in which family is empowered, encouraged and supported as the constant care provider, in addition to available nursing staff, to complement care of their sick newborn in nursery from admission until discharge.

It is a guiding document for those intending to introduce FPC in their facility. It provides details of infrastructure, training, role of healthcare providers and steps in the operationalisation of FPC in the newborn care unit, MoHFW said on Friday.

The guidelines have two distinct interventions: building capacities to parents-attendants in essential newborn care through a structured programme; and continuous supervision and support to parents-attendants providing care to their babies in newborn care unit.

However, the primary responsibility of care continues to rest with the conventional healthcare providers ” nurse and doctor, the guidelines say.

Under National Health Mission, more than 700 state-of-art SNCUs have been established across the country to provide round-the-clock comprehensive care to the newborns by dedicated trained staff.

The objective of the guidelines is also to take care of psychosocial and developmental needs of the newborn, for which FPC has emerged as an important concept of healthcare to bridge partnership between healthcare staff and families in care of sick newborns admitted in the SNCU, the ministry said.

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