Care for healthy newborns in Brazil: are we making progress in achieving best practices?

Abstract

This paper aims to compare best practices for healthy newborns in public and mixed hospitals affiliated with SUS, according to type of birth, between “Nascer no Brasil/2011” (NB – Birth in Brazil) and in the last assessment cycle of Rede Cegonha, here called “Avaliação da Rede Cegonha/2017” (ARC – Stork Network Assessment). NB included a sample with national representativeness of 266 hospitals, and ARC was conducted in 606 maternity hospitals included in the Rede Cegonha strategy, totaling 15,994 and 8,047 pairs of healthy mothers and newborns, respectively.Between the two studies, NB-2011 and ARC-2017, although the proportion of cesarean sections remained around 44%, the prevalence of skin-to-skin contact with newborns, breastfeeding in the delivery room and breastfeeding in the first 24h of life increased by 140%, 82% and 6%, respectively. The proportion of upper airway aspiration of newborns dropped 65%. The results indicate that the use of evidence-based guidelines for the care of healthy newborns has increased in clinical practice, considering the six-year period between the compared studies. Despite the progress, important challenges remain to ensure best practices for all women and newborns, especially in relation to cesarean births.

Key words
Unified Health System; Stork Network; Newborn; Birth assistance; Child care