Accelerating access to postnatal care and chlorhexidine in PNG

Our study was undertaken in 5 selected health facilities providing antenatal and postnatal care in East New Britain, and communities in the catchment area of 2 of these facilities.

Key activities included:

• postnatal education provided during antenatal care clinics by trained health workers including distribution of and training on chlorhexidine for umbilical cord care 
• enhancing the quality of postnatal care provided at health facilities through training and supervision of health workers, including distribution of and training on chlorhexidine
• distribution of chlorhexidine and basic postnatal care education to the community in line with national and provincial guidelines, though training and supervision of village health volunteers to provide home visits
• semi-structured interviews with health facility staff and village health volunteers, observations of postnatal and antenatal care services and focus group discussion with new and expectant parents at two time points: baseline and end line.

In 2018, we worked closely with the manufacturer GSK to arrange for purchase and supply of the first tranche of 9,000 boxes of umbilical cord chlorhexidine (Umbipro) for use in East New Britain province. This is the first deployment of this commodity in the country.

From December 2018, we began trialling different approaches to postnatal care, including home visits by village health volunteers. These were successful in connecting families with life-saving care.

In 2019 we developed Papua New Guinea’s first set of targeted postnatal community education materials, aiming to help families understand more about how to care for mothers and babies in the first crucial weeks after childbirth.

Timeline

This project ran from 2018 to 2019.