Our Hospital to Home (H2H) programme is designed to support newborns and their families in a neonatal unit and give them the best chance to survive and thrive after discharge.
H2H addresses a critical gap. Babies born small and sick have an increased risk of complications after discharge. Hospital to Home strengthens hospital discharge processes, provides comprehensive parent education, strengthens breastfeeding practices, and promotes care that encourages healthy brain development.
It also provides vigilant, at-home follow-up support to families for six months after discharge, with a developmental milestone check-up at both nine and 12 months. These follow-up visits are led by a network of highly trained, volunteer community health workers.
H2H shows improvements in
H2H goals
Goal 1
Provide comprehensive, family-centred care for sick and small newborns and their families during their admission to a newborn unit.
Goal 2
Improve rates of exclusive breastfeeding among hospitalised infants and increase daily weight gain by implementing cue-based feeding practices in the newborn unit.
Goal 3
Train community health workers to provide comprehensive at-home follow-up care for each baby that is discharged from the neonatal unit.
Goal 4
Educate parents on topics including recognising danger signs, lactation and breastfeeding, nutrition, sanitation and newborn development to help babies survive and thrive after discharge.
Meet Tom
When Tom’s triplets – Miracle, Mercy and Gift – were born prematurely in 2016, he learnt how challenging it can be for parents to care for small and sick newborns.
This experience motivated Tom to become a community health worker as part of our Hospital to Home programme. Now he is helping other families just like his.
Interested in the Hospital to Home package?
This H2H package has been developed to provide users with tools and guidance to implement both hospital and home components of the programme in their own setting.
In the coming months, we will make the H2H package available for download from our website. In the meantime, you can get in touch to learn more. This package will include learning modules across lactation and breastfeeding, neurodevelopmental care, family-centred care, health asessments and more.
Hospital to Home Partners
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