Neena Khadka

Newborn Team Lead (Save the Children)

Dr. Khadka joined the MCHIP Program as the Newborn Health Advisor and is now the Team Lead for Newborn Health for MCSP. Prior, she led Save the Children’s representation in the USAID bilateral in Nepal for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health as the Senior Specialist for Community Based Service Delivery. Under this partnership, Dr. Khadka and her team were involved in the testing of various pilot interventions for maternal and newborn programming at the community level—such as misoprostol for the prevention of postpartum hemorrhage, newborn vitamin A, and chlorhexidine umbilical application.

With Save the Children, she also served as the Saving Newborn Lives Program Manager, and initiated the ACCESS project in Nepal. With her team, Dr. Khadka supported the Department of Health Services and its stakeholders for rapid assessment of neonatal health and programming. This assessment recommended for the development of a community based newborn package, leading to the development of the national Community Based Newborn Care Package, in country.

In her home country of Nepal, Dr. Khadka was a Ministry of Health staff member for nearly 15 years, and spent a decade in clinical pediatric practice, including more than six years in neonatal intensive care. She also worked in the public health sector with the National Health Training Center as the Child Health Training Specialist, responsible for all government child health training. Dr. Khadka completed a master’s in Social Science Research at Mahidol University, Salaya, Thailand, and her thesis on “Neonatal Mortality Among Adolescent Mothers in Nepal” was based on secondary data from the National Demographic Health Survey of 1996.