Our study reviewed and evaluated the neonatal stimulation of 150 newborns at the Beira Central Hospital in Beira, Mozambique. In low-resource settings, such manual stimulation can be of critical importance in the resuscitation of infants who are having difficulty breathing.
Monitoring the stimulations performed on the 150 newborns, for a total of 546 separate episodes (an average of four stimulations per newborn), we observed that the timeliness with which the technique was implemented was inadequate, with an average time of 134 seconds before stimulation was begun. There was also poor adherence to the techniques recommended in international guidelines, i.e. stimulation of the feet, back and abdomen.
Only 9 of the 150 newborns responded positively to stimulation.