BACKGROUND Seventy-five percent of newborn deaths happen in the first-week of life, with the highest risk of death in the first 24-hours after birth.WHO and UNICEF recommend home-visits for babies in the first-week of life to assess for danger-signs and counsel caretakers for immediate referral of sick newborns. We assessed timely compliance with newborn referrals made by community-health worke...

Human newborns are more susceptible than adults to bacterial infection. With gram-negative bacteria, this may be due to a diminished response of newborn leukocytes to lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Since protein tyrosine kinase inhibition abolishes LPS priming in adult cells, we hypothesized that protein tyrosine kinases may have a critical role in LPS priming of polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs)...

A positive deviance (PD) inquiry identifies uncommon, model practices that a follow-on program can spread. PD has been used to rehabilitate malnourished children, but not for improving newborn health. Save the Children Federation/US (SC) conducted newborn PD cycles in communities (total population about 5,000 each) in two project areas in Haripur District, Pakistan among Afghan refugees and amo...

Newborn screening fact sheets were last revised in 1996 by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Genetics. This revision was prompted by advances in the field since 1996, including technologic innovations, as well as greater appreciation of ethical issues such as those surrounding informed consent. The following disorders are discussed in this revision of the newborn screening fact sh...

Bilirubin induced brain damage is still a common cause of morbidity and mortality in Nigerian infants. No much success has been recorded in decades despite the fact that brain damage from bilirubin toxicity in the newborn is easily preventable with affordable and effective means. We report a case of a newborn with acute bilirubin encephalopathy. This case was considered of interest because the ...

Although neocortical neuronal morphology has been documented in the adult giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi) and African elephant (Loxodonta africana), no research has explored the cortical architecture in newborns of these species. To this end, the current study examined the morphology of neurons from several cortical areas in the newborn giraffe and elephant. After cortical neuron...

OBJECTIVES To review studies on newborn hearing screening in Hong Kong and the current evidence on the cost-effectiveness of universal newborn hearing screening programmes and to determine their value and the best model for such a programme in Hong Kong. DATA SOURCE Medline literature search (1985-2004), local reports and abstracts available to the author. STUDY SELECTION Literature and dat...

BACKGROUND Cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX) is a rare genetic disorder of bile acid synthesis that can cause progressive neurological damage and premature death. Detection of CTX in the newborn period would be beneficial since an effective treatment is available. We previously described a liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS) test with potenti...

At birth, patient demographic and health information begin to accumulate in varied databases. There are often multiple sources of the same or similar data. New public health programs are often created without considering data linkages. Recently, newborn hearing screening (NHS) programs and immunization programs have virtually ignored the existence of newborn dried blood spot (DBS) newborn scree...

Global coverage and scale up of interventions to reduce newborn mortality remains low, though progress has been achieved in improving newborn survival in many low-income settings. An important factor in the success of newborn health interventions, and moving to scale, is appropriate design of community-based programs and strategies for local implementation. We report the results of formative re...