Essential Newborn Care (ENC): Steps, Components, Principles
What is Essential Newborn Care (ENC)?
Essential newborn care is the care that every newborn baby needs regardless of where it is born or its size. ENC should be applied immediately after the baby is born and continued for at least the first 7 days after birth.
Essential newborn care is a set of preventive measures including hygienic, thermal control (including dying & wrapping, skin to skin & delayed bathing) & early recognition of sick newborns.
Components of Essential Newborn Care (ENC):
All the components of essential newborn care have listed in the below:
- Prevent infection of newborn.
- Give eye care.
- Keeping the baby warm.
- Encourage early & exclusive.
- Starting immunization schedule.
- Extra care LBW babies.
- Correct management of newborn illness.
You can read: Physical Examination or Assessment of Unwell Newborn or Neonate
Purposes of Essential Newborn Care (ENC):
These measures are needed-
- To ensure the survival of all newborns.
- To assist babies when needed & early recognition of sick newborns.
Objectives of Essential Newborn Care (ENC):
It includes the following:
- To provide evidence-based practices to ensure survival of the newborn from birth up to the first 28 days of life.
- To deliver time-bound core intervention in the immediate period after the delivery of the newborn.
- To strengthen health facility environment for breastfeeding initiation to take place and for breastfeeding to be continued from discharge up to 2 years of life.
- To provide appropriate and timely emergency newborn care to newborns in need of resuscitation.
- To ensure access o newborns to affordable life-saving medicines to reduce deaths and morbidity from leading causes of newborn conditions.
- To ensure inclusion of newborn care in the overall approach to the Maternal, Newborn, Child Health and Nutrition Strategy.
Basic Principles of Essential Newborn Care (ENC):
Basic principles of ENC are–
- To ensure adequate oxygenation through clear airways and proper breathing.
- To prevent hypothermia in the neonates.
- To encourage early and exclusive breastfeeding for healthy neonates or suitable method of providing nutrition to weak and sick babies who cannot feed on breast and get adequate nutrition.
- Suitable measures to prevent neonatal infections.
- Early identification, of at-risk newborn, offer suitable initial, management and stabilization of the baby if possible or arrange for safe transfer to suitable advanced neonatal care center.
You can read: How to Assess a High Risk Newborn or Neonate?
4 Core Steps of Essential Newborn Care (ENC):
These are-
- Immediate & thorough drying.
- Early skin to skin contact (SSC).
- Properly-Timed cord clamping.
- Non-Separation of mother & newborn for early Breastfeeding.
Essential Newborn Care Checklist:
It includes the following-
- Cleaning airway and stimulating crying.
- Driving the baby with a clean, dry cloth, covering the head, without wiping the vernix caseosa, and refraining from bathing the baby for 24 hours.
- Immediate warming by placing baby in skin-to-skin contact with mother (use KMC for LBW baby).
- Cleaning umbilical cord and wiping eyes with a clean cloth.
- Immediate and exclusive breast-feeding.
- Recognition and care-seeking for special care.
More questions related to this article:
- What is ENC?
- Define Essential newborn care.
- What do you mean by Essential newborn care?
- List the component of Essential newborn care.
- What are the purposes of essential newborn care?
- List the purposes of essential newborn care.
- What are the Objectives of essential newborn care?
- Mention the Objectives of essential newborn care.
- Mention the basic principles of essential newborn care.
- Mention the basic principles of essential newborn care.
- What are the basic principles of essential newborn care?
- Write down the 4 core steps of essential newborn care.
- Discuss some essential newborn care.
