Skin-on-skin effort aims to cut newborn deaths

A social media campaign has been launched in China to cut down the number of newborn babies who die in the first 24 hours of life.

The campaign, called First Embrace, promotes skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby immediately after birth, a practice proven to keep the baby warm and help it to fight infections.

There are 16 million babies born in China each year, and approximately 150,000 of them die before they reach one month of age. Of that number, half die in the first 24 hours of life, which is the category targeted by the World Health Organization China.