This post originally appeared on Healthy Newborns Network.

I met Pipi when he was less than 2 years old, before he had earned his nickname, which means “playful” in English. He was already full of energy and the promise of a playful child. Now 7 years old, Pipi plays basketball and dreams of becoming an architect. But he almost didn’t get this far. At birth, he was unable to breathe due to a condition known as birth asphyxia, which was a leading cause of neonatal death in China.

Pipi was a direct beneficiary of the China Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP), which formed more than 10 years ago when Johnson & Johnson and a group of visionaries came together under a single goal: to help more newborns in China survive the fragile moments immediately following birth. Our dream was to have one person who was skilled to help a baby breathe at every birth….No small task in the largest country in the world!

Worldwide, more children die within the first 28 days of life, the newborn period, than at any other time in childhood, even though the skills and interventions needed to save their precious lives are well-known. For more than a century, Johnson & Johnson has been dedicated to helping newborns to survive and thrive – no matter where they live.

Our collaborations for newborn health span more than 20 countries, and range from the highest level of training, to simplified methods that can be used in low-resource settings. Our recent commitment of more than $30 million to the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) reaffirmed our longstanding dedication to the world’s mothers and children, because no baby should die from a preventable cause.

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