BMC international health and human rights
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BMC Int Health Hum Rights · Nov 2018
"We need good nutrition but we have no money to buy food": sociocultural context, care experiences, and newborn health in two UNHCR-supported camps in South Sudan.
Determinants of newborn health and survival exist across the reproductive life cycle, with many sociocultural and contextual factors influencing outcomes beyond the availability of, and access to, quality health services. In order to better understand key needs and opportunities to improve newborn health in refugee camp settings, we conducted a multi-methods qualitative study of the status of maternal and newborn health in refugee camps in Upper Nile state, South Sudan. ⋯ Numerous sociocultural and contextual factors impact newborn health in this setting. Improving nutritional support during pregnancy, strengthening community-based transportation for women in labour, allowing a birth companion to be present during delivery, addressing harmful home-based newborn care practices such as mixed feeding and application of foreign substances to the umbilicus, and optimizing the networks of community health workers and traditional birth attendants are potential ways to improve newborn health outcomes.