Calapiña-Guachi et al. (2026)
education interventions in improving mothers’ knowledge of these signs. Methodology: Following
PRISMA guidelines and PICO criteria, PubMed, Scopus, SciELO, Lilacs, and Redalyc were
searched between 2021 and 2026. The following MeSH/DeCS terms were used: Mothers,
Newborn, Nursing Care, Health Education, and Health Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practice,
combined using the Boolean operators AND and OR in the search strategy. Results: Twenty
articles were included, distributed across three research questions: ten evaluated formal nursing
interventions, five described baseline knowledge without active intervention, and five compared
community-based models coordinated with nursing versus formal hospital-based models.
Mothers' baseline level of knowledge is quite low (only 14.0% reaches an adequate level), since
they practically only identify fever. In contrast, when interventions that include practical
demonstrations, feedback, or two-way communication are applied such as flip charts, videos,
transition programs, and real-time counseling the ability to recognize warning signs such as
jaundice, lethargy, hypothermia, and umbilical cord infections improves notably. Conversely, one-
way automated messages and community work without nursing supervision are of little use.
Conclusions: Nursing-led education activities work very well when they add interaction, practice,
and direct professional supervision, regardless of whether they take place in a hospital or in the
community. From a clinical standpoint, there is an urgent need to rethink discharge protocols,
favoring visual and interactive formats, and coordinating and supervising community networks
under the guidance of professional nurses to better protect newborns.
Keywords: Newborn, Mothers, Nursing Care, Health Education, Health Knowledge, Attitudes,
and Practices, Medical Emergencies.
supervivencia del bebé (Apetorgbor
1. Introducción
et al., 2024).
El periodo neonatal los primeros 28
días de vida es la etapa de mayor
fragilidad biológica de nuestra
existencia (Wudu et al., 2024). En
esta etapa tan delicada, los signos
de alarma en los recién nacidos
En todo el mundo, las muertes de
recién nacidos son un reto enorme
para la salud pública: cada año se
registran cerca de 2.4 millones de
casos, lo que representa el 47% de
los fallecimientos en niños menores
de cinco años. Alrededor del 75% de
estas muertes pasan durante la
primera semana de vida, lo que
muestra lo frágil que es este periodo
(como la dificultad para respirar, la
bajada de temperatura, dejar de
comer o la coloración amarillenta),
llamados también danger signs o
warning signs en la literatura
internacional, son avisos clínicos de
enfermedades que pueden llegar a
ser mortales (Alinaitwe et al., 2025).
Que la madre detecte estos
síntomas a tiempo marca el ritmo
con el que se busca ayuda médica,
lo cual resulta clave para la
(Abdissa et al., 2026). A pesar de
esto, más del 80% de dichos
decesos se deben a problemas que
se pueden prevenir y tratar, como
nacer antes de tiempo, la falta de
aire al nacer y las infecciones (Wudu
et al., 2024). Por esta razón, detectar
a tiempo los signos de alarma en los
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