CARE first launched its health-related development projects in the late 1950s, including the promotion of maternal and child health through immunizations, good nutrition and preventive health measures. In 1985, CARE intensified its efforts in children's health with Child Survival projects supported by USAID in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Today, CARE is recognized throughout the international development community for our 36 innovative and effective Child Survival projects in 18 countries. In fiscal year 2003, more than 9.5 million children in 31 countries benefitted from child health projects, reducing their vulnerability to disease.
Currently, CARE manages more than 50 projects with a maternal and child health component.
Overview of CARE's Children's Health Technical Interventions
- Community-based Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI): In most of the countries where CARE works, the majority of child deaths occur outside of a health facility. For this reason, CARE and our partners will focus efforts on supporting the community-based application of IMCI, an approach that helps improve family and community health and nutrition practices; detection and care seeking behaviors; and the management of sick children. IMCI as an approach covers major illnesses, malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, vitamin A deficiency and nutrition.
- Community-based Neonatal Health Care: CARE has identified strategies that can significantly reduce newborn deaths, which currently comprise 40 to 60 percent of child mortality. These include: prenatal care; promoting the use of safe delivery kits and training birth attendants and families in safe delivery; essential newborn care; extra newborn care with a focus on vulnerables (i.e. low birth weight); and post-partum care.
- Maternal Health: Many maternal deaths can be addressed effectively and efficiently by helping communities develop plans to avoid the "four delays" of recognizing a problem, making a decision to seek care, transporting the woman to a reference facility, and getting proper care at a reference facility. CARE's preventive activities for communities include training and equipping traditional birth attendants, making safe delivery kits available, promoting prenatal (including tetanus toxoid and iron supplementation) and post-natal care, birth planning and monetary savings for emergencies.
- Nutrition: Nutrition is a key intervention area because of the significant contribution of malnutrition to childhood illness and because of malnutrition's detrimental effects on physical and mental development. Areas of emphasis will include immediate and exclusive breastfeeding, timely and appropriate complementary feeding, micronutrient intake, prevention of protein-energy malnutrition and appropriate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.
CARE's Children's Health projects and interventions designed to prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS and care for those affected by the disease have grown dramatically. In terms of maternal and children's health, CARE's activities will focus on HIV/AIDS prevention, mother-to-child transmission, and the care of AIDS orphans. Interventions will not only include children infected with HIV/AIDS, but also those whose lives have been affected by the disease. These interventions will use a comprehensive and multi-sectoral approach that ties in other related CARE initiatives such as education, income generation, family support and food security.
CARE's immunization efforts include a focus on global polio eradication.
Children's Health Programs
