SUDANESE JOURNAL OF PAEDIATRICIANS VOLUME9, TOWARDS BIRTH ATTENDANTS SKILLED IN NEONATAL CARE IN SUDAN

Neonatal mortality in Sudan is estimated at (31 per 1 000). The high figure is attributed to poor neonatal care resources, and shortage of staff trained in neonatal care. Midwives are the first line staff to deal with neonates requiring urgent help. Neonatal care training is deficient in midwifery schools. Also there is lack of in-service training m neonatal cai'e for hospital midwives. We established a two days course in March 2007 in Khartoum named (Neonatal care and infection prevention).This has targeted Hospital midwives in its first phase. Ten courses were held between March 2007 and June 2009. Five of these were held in Khartoum, whereas five were organized in the districts in the White Nile (Kosti), The Blue Nile (Sinja), Algazeera (Almanagil), Gedarif and Kassala. The courses compnse lectures on common neonatal problems, as well as practicals on neonatal resuscitation, neonatal examination and infection prevention. 240 midwives have been trained so far. Of these, 50 candidates have been selected to become future trainers in their own hospitals. They attended a Training of the Trainers course in December 2008. We conclude that more neonatal care courses are required to cover all midwives involved in delivery and care of the newborn. We believe that improving neonatal care training for midwives, as well as applying scientific measures at infection prevention, will contribute to reduction of neonatal mortality and morbidity