The Neonatal Division at the Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, was designated as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Training and Research in 1997. During the sixteen years since its inception, the Centre has made significant contribution towards promotion of newborn care at the national and the international level.
We have worked closely with the Government of India, several state governments, Indian Council of Medical Research, National Neonatology Forum, Indian Academy of Pediatrics, Nursing and Medical Schools and NGO's. We are privileged to have been associated with a wide range of neonatal health initiatives of the World Health Organization through the India Country Office, the South East Asia Regional Office as well as the HQ's at Geneva. We have collaborated actively with UNICEF, UNOPS , Saving Newborn Lives/Save the Children, American Academy of Pediatrics , the Rotary International and several leading Universities in North America. It is an honor for us to be able to contribute to newborn health with partners in DPR Korea, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, East Timor, Maldives, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mauritius , Iran and Bhutan.
The spectrum of our work spans from training and education, tools development research, advocacy, policy and dissemination thereof. The areas of special focus include Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness, Neonatal Resuscitation Program, Newborn Nursing, Kangaroo Mother Care, Neonatal–Perinatal Database and Networking, Essential Care for Every Newborn of Global Alliance, home and community-based newborn care, technologies for maternal newborn health and newborn health programming within the maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) continuum.
Currently the WHO-CC is involved in providing regular in service fellowship for health professionals from India and SEARO countries. Training tool on Essential Newborn Nursing for resource restricted countries and Standard Treatment Protocols for management of sick neonates have been developed for dissemination in SEA region. The centre has coordinated Kangaroo Mother Care Initiative network with five institutions in the country, for spreading KMC practice among health care professionals. A website is launched for healthcare professionals and parents www.kmcindia.org
Regular training workshops on Neonatal Resuscitation, Kangaroo Mother Care , Neonatal Ventilation , CPAP and Continuing Medical Education for doctors and nurses are being conducted in Delhi and satellite cities by the WHO-CC Faculty. Our centre is the nodal centre for collection of neonatal perinatal database for the country and currently working very closely with ICMR for perusing multisite research on key Newborn Health issues through Centre of Advanced Research. At present, our Division is collaborating with WHO HQs and ICMR on multiple research projects and assisting WHO SEARO for setting up Neonatal Perinatal Database for SEARO region & assisting in developing educational tools for various levels of healthcare professionals
