What is the challenge? 

Malawi faces a severe humanitarian crisis from political instability, disease outbreaks, and extreme weather. Malawi also struggles with high neonatal mortality. The care of small and sick newborns in Malawi is hindered by economic and social barriers, with a lack of facility-based care and breast milk access. At Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH), 250 sick neonates are admitted monthly, 46% due to prematurity. Challenges such as insufficient breastfeeding support, mother-infant separation, and inadequate breast milk storage lead to severe health issues, highlighting the urgent need for comprehensive interventions in Malawi.

What is innovative about the project? 

This project aims to identify an innovative Bundle of Care for child nutrition targeting small and sick newborns in Malawi’s Kamuzu Central Hospital, and their mothers. It can include a completely new product or service, or a new way of implementing an existing product or service in the facility and context in Malawi. The Bundle of Care can include physical products, like an innovative low-cost breast pump, or leaning more towards service design and user experience design, looking at how the hospital and wards are organized.

This project is innovative because it combines multiple interventions into a comprehensive package of supportive nutrition care tailored for low-resource settings. It adopts a human-centered approach, focusing on the needs of children, caregivers, healthcare workers, and the broader community. Collaborating with private partners, the project aims to develop and pilot cost-effective, high-impact products or services that are sustainable and scalable to other districts in Malawi and similar humanitarian contexts. The goal is to create affordable and acceptable solutions that support a viable business model and foster innovative collaboration between healthcare facilities, private partners, and the Ministry of Health.

What are the expected outcomes? 

The expected outcome of this project is to solidify the Bundle of Care as a standard practice at KCH and potentially across Malawi's hospitals. This will involve local private sector partnerships for sustainability, training healthcare workers and entrepreneurs, and community engagement for acceptance. The collaboration with the Ministry of Health will seek to integrate these interventions into national health policies for long-term support.

Who are the project partners? 

The project is led by Save the Children Norway in collaboration with Save the Children Malawi, the Kamuzu Central Hospital, Ministry of Health in Malawi and private sector partners.