The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released Operational Guidelines for Planning and Implementation of Family Participatory Care (FPC) for improving newborn health.
The guidelines are for all stakeholders involved in the process of planning and delivering newborn care.
They will serve as a guiding document for those intending to introduce FPC in their facility as an integral part of facility based newborn care.
Family Participatory Care/ FPC has emerged as an important concept of health care as it provides partnership between health care staff and families in care of sick newborns admitted in the Special Newborn Care Units (SNCU).
Under it, the capacities of parents-attendants are built in newborn care through a structured training programme (training guide and audio-visual module).
Sick and newborn are highly vulnerable and require careful nurturing in order to survive the neonatal period and first year of life.
Under National Health Mission (NHM), more than 700 state of the art SNCU have been established across the country to provide 24 X 7 comprehensive care to the newborns by dedicated trained staff.
When parents are trained, during the stay of their babies in the hospital, to provide supportive care to their newborns, it will help in not only to improve survival of the babies after discharge but also cater psycho-social and developmental needs of the newborn.
The Operational Guidelines provides details of infrastructure, training, role of health care providers and steps in the operationalisation of FPC in the newborn care unit.
It also addresses various aspects of attitudes, infrastructural modifications and practice that will help in establishing FPC at SNCU.
It also includes sensitization of State and District Managers on FPC, prioritization of SNCUs for initiating FPC, making required infrastructural enhancement in SNCU, creating family participatory care environment in SNCU.
It also seeks to ensure availability of supplies for parents-attendants, role of healthcare providers for FPC implementation, training of SNCU staff for SNCU and institutional support for FPC.
The guidelines will be shared with the states for implementation to further improve the quality of care provided in the SNCUs across the country.
