Welcoming new-borns and ensuring better maternal care are core priorities of GE Healthcare (NYSE: GE), and the company presented its advanced suite of maternal infant care solutions recently at Arab Health 2014 in Dubai. The focus on maternal infant care is essential to ensuring the best possible start to life for new-borns.

According to a UNICEF report*, while the mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) in the Middle East and North Africa region for children under the age of five years declined by 3.9 percent from 1990 to 2012, the share of neo-natal deaths or newborns in this group, increased from 40 percent in 1990 to 51 percent in 2012. The report states that around 44 percent of the global under-five deaths occurred in the neonatal period (the first 28 days of life) in 2012.

Maher Abouzeid, President and CEO of GE Healthcare for the Middle East and Pakistan, said: While there has been dramatic improvement in the Gulf countries in reducing the maternal-infant mortality rate, the challenge of providing adequate mother-infant care continues to be very pertinent in several parts of the world including in the Middle East as well as in Turkey, Africa and Russia.

Also, importantly, across the world, there has been an increase reported in the number of neo-natal deaths. In addition to promoting neonatal care and maternal well-being, GE Healthcares maternal and infant care solutions are aligned to meet the Millennium Development Goals and reflect our healthymagination commitment to enhance access to high quality care to more people at lower costs.

Close to one-fourth of the infant deaths occur due to asphyxia (lack of oxygen). Neonatal resuscitation is the intervention performed to achieve the necessary cardio-respiratory stability in infants to prevent or recover from asphyxia. Clinical evidence suggests that close to 80 percent of all low birth weight infants need resuscitation and around one million infants need advanced resuscitation.^

GE Healthcare develops solutions to help support a healthy developmental environment at every point during pregnancy and all through the first days of life, and at any critical moments for the infant. Having safe and efficient devices within reach during labor and childbirth could help to prevent many neonatal deaths.

GE Healthcares latest innovation, the Lullaby Resus Plus, presented for the first time in the Middle East at Arab Health, gives healthcare providers an integrated, simple and efficient device to perform neonatal resuscitation quickly to provide more effective and efficient care to the infants. By making it easier to respond and deliver quality neonatal resuscitation, Lullaby Resus Plus helps caregivers deliver enhanced quality care, faster, when every second counts.

Also available to healthcare providers in Middle East, are GEs Giraffe Omnibed, a richly-featured neonatal microenvironment that combines the thermal advantages of a double-wall incubator with the access advantages of an open bed radiant warmer, and the new Giraffe Blue Spot PT Lite which offers high-intensity phototherapy that is easy on patients and caregivers alike. The high intensity blue light with a narrow spectral band of 430 490 nanometer (one billionth of a meter) with excellent uniformity makes it clinically effective and flexible positioning arm allows the caregivers to direct therapeutic light exactly on the infant. In addition, GEs Panda FS Warmer combines advanced technologies with innovative features to deliver state-of-the-art thermoregulation while promoting family-centered care.

GE Healthcares solutions are designed to help mothers, as well. Maternal morbidity can often be prevented but healthcare providers may lack the proper tools to recognize a problem early enough during labor and childbirth to intervene. This problem is compounded in areas where there is a shortage of trained clinicians.

GE Healthcares Centricity Perinatal helps healthcare providers assess and respond to potential labor complications quickly so they can provide effective and efficient care to mothers and babies during labor and delivery. It is a departmental clinical information system that integrates fetal surveillance and documentation to help healthcare organizations deliver their best care to every mother and baby. By making it easier to monitor infant heart rates and track maternal progress, Centricity Perinatal helps caregivers make fast, more informed decisions and deliver quality care when every second counts.

Other perinatal solutions include: Corometrics 250 cx Series, Corometrics 170 Series Fetal Monitor and Mini Telemetry System; perinatal respiratory support with Engstrom ventilators for Neonates and jaundice management with Lullaby LED Phototherapy System and Bilisoft Phototherapy System.

GEs perinatal care product portfolio is designed to not only deliver excellent patient care, but also to deliver simple and reliable solutions keeping in mind the challenges and concerns of healthcare providers and institutions across the globe.