Health Economics in Home Based Newborn Care

The current article deals with the stage of life in the first month of a baby. As it is critical & evident, the first stage of life is critical as the child is highly risky not only to morbidity but also to mortality. It is an incremental risk that decreases with the passage of time in the first month of life. This decrease can be achieved at a very low cost & that too at home without support of any skilled health provider. The article discusses these risks in the past at the global level & at the national level. It uses the mortality indicator to assess the risks of the newborn. Further, it establishes the concept of health economics through the low cost involved to deal with these risks at the household level. A direct relationship is established between the mortality indicator & the low cost involved. A newborn struggle in the first month of his or her life as is evident from mythology that Lord Krishna too had a turbulent neonatal stage. The struggle of newborns continues in India even today. The current Neonatal Mortality Rate in India is 20 per 1000 live births as per SRS & 24.9 as per NFHS 5. The high neonatal mortality in India stands as a testimony to this fact as reducing this indicator is a priority. The current article focuses on the initiatives of the role of health economics in public health system to address neonatal mortality. Basically, there are two approaches to reduce neonatal mortality. These are Home Based Neonatal Care (HBNC) practices and the Facility Based Neonatal Care (FBNC) practices. The article focuses exclusively on the first approach which is HBNC & sees the role of health economics in this approach. The article cites the history of health economics in India & the concept of need, supply & demand aspects of health services. Following that, the article sees the HBNC approach in health economics & the process to upscale the approach to reduce NMR & thereby IMR thus fulfilling the developmental objectives of the nation. .................