Dr Efunbo Dosekun, paediatrician and CEO of Outreach Hospital Group, urges urgent action to reduce Nigeria’s high infant mortality rate. She emphasised early hospital referral, coordinated emergency care, and sustained community awareness as critical interventions.
Preventable conditions like sepsis, jaundice, birth asphyxia, and prematurity complications continue to claim thousands of newborn lives annually. Delays in accessing proper care worsen outcomes.
“With prompt hospital presentation, babies can be saved from death, brain damage, or lifelong disability,” Dosekun said. She highlighted infections, trauma, and anaemia as major threats that timely care can prevent.
Nigeria records over 280,000 newborn deaths yearly, while pneumonia contributes to about 162,000 child fatalities, according to the Coordinating Minister of Health, Prof. Muhammad Pate. The country also has the world’s second-highest under-five mortality rate.
Dosekun stressed strengthening prenatal care, expanding neonatal units, improving referral systems, and raising community awareness. She advised that deliveries occur in hospitals equipped with functional neonatal units and adequate beds.
Simple practices such as keeping newborns warm, close monitoring, and proper follow-up care significantly improve survival, particularly for preterm babies.
She called for integration of newborn care with antenatal and delivery services, urging collaboration between paediatricians and gynaecologists at primary healthcare centres.
The Federal Government’s CEmONC initiative now includes neonatal care, with pilot programmes in private hospitals complementing public facilities. Outreach Hospital Group provides Level II neonatal care under this scheme.
Dosekun emphasised functional referral systems, ambulance services, and parental education as essential. She concluded, “With early detection and proper care, most newborn deaths are preventable.”
