Table 2 Strengths and capacities of neonatal health care in Iran

• Achieving international targets on neonatal mortality at the national level

• Considerable decrease in neonatal mortality rate despite the increasing trend of preterm babies

• Designating and increasing coverage of Baby-Friendly Hospitals

• Improving physical space and amenities of hospitals through Labor and Delivery Room (LDR)

• Increasing number and access to NICU beds

• Increasing the presence of resident pediatricians or neonatologists at hospitals and during high-risk childbirths

• Training and monitoring of general neonatal care, such as well-baby care, skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding, and Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC).

• Training and monitoring of specialized care such as neonatal resuscitation, Acute Care of At-Risk Newborns Program (ACORN), Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC), and neonatal respiratory care

• Monitoring hospitals on services such as well-baby program, and high-risk newborn care and sending feedback to the hospitals

• Organizing a newborn resuscitation team in teaching hospitals

• Providing various neonatal care educational booklets to healthcare providers

• Providing various educational pamphlets on newborn care to parents and families

• Preparation of pathways and protocols for inter-hospital transfer of newborns and referrals by each university of medical sciences

• Establishing periodic neonatal mortality clinical rounds in each hospital

• Implementation of Nursery Assessment and Certification Program (NNACP) as a pilot program

• Providing mothers’ education for neonatal care during pregnancy by certified midwives

• Providing breastfeeding counseling to mothers to promote breastfeeding in some hospitals

• Launching the first breast milk bank (Alzahra Hospital, Tabriz, 2016)

• Re-orienting charities and utilizing donations to buy required equipment such as phototherapy and incubators in some hospitals

• Launching a pilot project on home care newborn program

• The screening program for hearing loss in newborns