What it is
Postnatal care is the care a mother and her newborn receive in the days and weeks after birth. It covers checks for both, support with feeding, and identification of the complications that arise in this period. Coverage is measured separately for the mother and for the newborn.
Why it matters
Why the first month carries the highest risk
- 01Risk is concentrated in the first daysIn 2022 an estimated 2.3 million children died in their first month of life. About a third of neonatal deaths occur within the first day after birth, and close to three quarters within the first week.
- 02It is where a growing share of child deaths now fallsDeath in the first month accounted for 47 per cent of all deaths among children under five in 2022. As under-five mortality declines, deaths are becoming more concentrated in the first days of life.
- 03Most causes are known and addressableComplications of prematurity, intrapartum events such as birth asphyxia and trauma, congenital abnormalities and lower respiratory infections account for 79 per cent of newborn deaths.
- 04The same period matters for the motherPostpartum haemorrhage, infection and hypertensive disorders can develop after the birth. A postnatal contact is the opportunity to detect them.
Where we are
Around a third of mothers and newborns receive no postnatal check
Globally, about 62.7 per cent of mothers and 63.4 per cent of newborns receive a postnatal health check. Coverage for the two is close, but they are measured separately and a contact for one does not guarantee a contact for the other.
Coverage for mothers has risen from 45.6 per cent in 2008 to 62.7 per cent in 2025, a gain of 17 percentage points; the remaining gap sits in the period when risk of death is highest.
Neonatal mortality has fallen from 37 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 17 in 2022. That 56 per cent decline is slower than the 62 per cent decline among children under five over the same period.
Postnatal care is measured separately for the mother and the newborn. These are parallel measures, not steps in a sequence.
63.4%coverage
MNCH global aggregates, February 2026
The two indicators cover the same period but different people. A postnatal contact recorded for a mother does not establish that her newborn was also checked, or the reverse.
Change over time
Change over time
Mothers receiving a postnatal health check, globally. Estimates are pooled across multi-year periods rather than annual.
What is measured
A contact is recorded; its content is not
Postnatal coverage records whether a check took place. It does not record what was done during it, or whether a complication that was present would have been identified.
The Every Newborn Action Plan calls for increased focus on the period around birth, on the basis that high-impact interventions there can reduce newborn deaths, maternal deaths and stillbirths together.
- Postnatal care for mothers
- The percentage of women who received a postnatal health check following birth.
- Postnatal care for newborns
- The percentage of newborns who received a postnatal health check following birth.
Read these figures with care
- Coverage records that a contact occurred, not what it contained or how soon after birth it took place.
- Mother and newborn coverage are separate estimates. Similar values do not mean the same mother–newborn pairs were reached.
- Most estimates derive from household surveys conducted every three to five years, so a figure for a single year is generally modelled rather than directly observed.
Where to get the data
Where to find the data
References
- WHO and UNICEF, Every Newborn Action Plan.
- UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, Levels and Trends in Child Mortality.
- UNICEF, Ending preventable newborn deaths and stillbirths by 2030.
Related topics
Copy last reviewed July 2026.