Home-visiting nurses help support parenthood
Nurses like Iryna visit newborns and their parents at home, helping with care and answering questions on breastfeeding, vaccinations and more
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Nurse Iryna Batsuk has been visiting one-month-old Svyatoslav since he was born, helping young parents Alyona and Oleksandr understand their son's needs.
"At first, I didn't know what to do with the child,” says Oleksandr. “I was afraid that if I took him in my arms, I would do something wrong, hurt him, or something. He was so small.”
Iryna is a participant in the Home Visiting Programme, implemented by Ukraine’s Ministry of Health together with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The initiative provides home counselling for families with children aged 0 to 3 years by qualified nurses.
Alyona and Oleksandr live in Kyiv, and both had many questions for Iryna about Svyatoslav’s sleep schedule, feeding and bathing regime.
“It's important for me to be involved in my child's care because I am a father and I want him to feel my presence from an early age"
In the first few days of his life, Svyatoslav lost weight and Alyona worried that her son was not getting enough breast milk. But Iryna was there to help.
"Mothers can have different problems with breastfeeding,” says the home-visiting nurse. “I try to reassure and praise them so that they know they can do it, they just need a little patience and time.”
Many mothers who face difficulties during their baby’s first few weeks start feeding their newborns with formula, which often leads to breast milk loss. Home-visiting nurses promote breastfeeding, since a mother's milk is healthy and always available.
Iryna showed Alyona how to properly put her son to the breast and advised her to feed him on demand. Now the family has no problems with feeding, and Svyatoslav has gained more than a kilogram of weight in his first month.
"As a mother, it is important for me to feel that I am giving my child the best. It is very valuable to me that he drinks my milk”
If no risks connected to a baby's health are identified, the nurse will visit a family ten times in the first three years of the baby's life. If specialists have any concerns, they will draw up an individualised visiting plan and visit the family more often.
The pilot of the Home Visiting Programme in Kyiv was launched on 1 June 2023. In the first two months, nurse Iryna Batsuk registered ten families with newborns. Parents seek advice on breastfeeding, vaccination, care, injury prevention, intestinal colic and more.
"During the first months of the war, very few children were born in Kyiv because pregnant women were leaving,” says Iryna. “Now people are coming back, and they want to have children.”
One of the advantages of visiting families at home is the time the nurse can devote to answering all of the parents' questions. While a doctor's appointment usually lasts no more than 20 minutes, a home-visiting nurse like Iryna can stay with a family for an hour or two to assess the parents' emotional state and the general atmosphere.
"I keep telling parents: ‘I am just a phone call away. You can contact me at any time by texting or calling. I will give you an answer, advise you and refer you to the right institution or doctor.’ I try to become a reliable assistant for the family in raising their child.”
The Home Visiting Programme is currently being piloted in the Donetska, Zhytomyrska, Kirovohradska, Dnipropetrovska, Kyivska regions Lvivska and Poltavska regions, as well as in Kyiv. Thanks to training funded by the European Union, over 180 nurses are providing support to children and their families.
