Scaling Up Chlorhexidine for Umbilical Cord Care in Hard-To-Reach-Areas, Far-Western, Nepal

Neonatal Health is a grave concern for Nepal presently. Still home delivery does exist in our country where sixty three per cent of deliveries happens at home in an unhygienic environment and 41% of them apply a substance such as oil, dried cow dung, ash, vermillion to the umbilical cord for early fall of stump which can lead to infection (NDHS 2011). Meanwhile, the Government of Nepal (GoN) has made great strides in reducing NMR. In 2011 GoN pioneered an exciting and promising intervention with Chlorhexidine (CHX) which is affordable, efficacious and safe. This intervention saved four thousand babies’ lives. The main objective of the researchwas to identify an appropriate behavioral communication strategy to reach the hardto-reach-areas for the practice of healthy cord care. The BCC intervention used were three standard approaches. The first one were social mobilization approach (training to FCHV, mother’s groups and community leaders, demonstrations with life-sized dolls, distribution of posters, pamphlets and providing essential CHX related audio andvideo messages) to primary and secondary audiences. Another approach used were advocacy which included initial observation and keeping records of availability of CHX tubes in health facilities and counseling to ANC service providers, health facilities in charge and FCHV and the last approach used were multimedia which constituted of ICT and IEC materials for the purpose of intervention to change the participant’s behaviour. Keywords: behavioral communication change, social mobilization, advocacy, multimedia use &nbsp