The Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) initiative trains health care workers in low-resource settings to intervene when newborns have birth asphyxia, the inability to breathe at birth. HBB is committed to increase the availability of skilled birth attendants at every birth. Nurses and midwives with HBB training have the skills to resuscitate over 90% of babies with birth asphyxia.
In 2011, Johnson & Johnson made a $2 million 5-year investment to implement HBB in Malawi and Uganda in partnership with Save the Children. The partnership has trained more than 1000 skilled birth attendants, mostly midwives.
HBB is an extension of over a decade of work with the Neonatal Resuscitation Program to address birth asphyxia, including a joint effort in China by Johnson & Johnson, the Chinese Ministry of Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics that has saved more than 190,000 babies. Since the program launched in 2004, newborn death caused by birth asphyxia has declined in China by more than 50% percent.
To date, our programs address birth asphyxia in more than 12 countries including China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Nepal, Pakistan, Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa.
