Home-Based Newborn Care Programme

The Home-Based Newborn Care (HBNC) programme provides newborn and postnatal care at home through scheduled visits by trained frontline health workers. Its principal objective is to improve newborn survival by promoting essential care, detecting illness early and ensuring timely referral during the first 42 days after birth.

Principal objective

The programme aims to reduce neonatal mortality and morbidity, especially during the vulnerable first six weeks of life. It extends essential care from health facilities to households and promotes a continuum of care between the health system, the ASHA and the family.

How the objective is pursued

Under the programme, an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) makes scheduled household visits during the first 42 days after birth.

• She supports breastfeeding, warmth, hygiene, cord care, immunisation and appropriate care of small or preterm newborns.
• She identifies danger signs and facilitates timely referral to an appropriate health facility.
• She counsels families on newborn care and encourages the mother to obtain postnatal care.
• The schedule generally provides six visits after an institutional delivery and seven visits after a home delivery, including a visit on the first day for a home-born child.

Public-health significance

Introduced under the National Rural Health Mission in 2011, HBNC complements facility-based delivery and newborn services. Its central value is that survival depends not only on care at birth, but also on correct household practices and prompt treatment-seeking during the neonatal period.