Register a Newborn as a New Patient

A newborn is a patient in their own right from the moment they are born. So when a baby is delivered, the midwife registers it — and Veona mints the baby its own permanent UHID (Unique Health ID — a lifelong hospital number, looks like VNA-…), separate from the mother’s. The baby’s record is linked back to the mother through a shared birth record, and a birth-dose immunisation schedule is seeded at the same time. From that instant the newborn can be charted, treated and have results filed exactly like any other patient.

Who / when: the midwife (role midwife), immediately after a delivery has been recorded. We’ll follow Midwife Funke registering the baby just delivered to Mrs. Adeyemi.

1. Midwife — open Maternity → Newborn. The screen is titled “Newborn record”.
2. Midwife — pick the mother from the patient picker: start typing her name or her UHID and select her. This is what links the baby’s record to hers.
3. Midwife — record the newborn’s details: its sex, its birth weight, its APGAR (the standard quick score of a newborn’s condition at birth — colour, pulse, reflexes, muscle tone and breathing), and the delivering team who attended the birth.
4. Midwife — press “Register”. Veona mints a brand-new patient UHID for the baby — its own VNA-… number — links it to the mother, and shows it on the success banner.

Note

The baby’s UHID is genuinely its own. It is not a sub-record of the mother and it is not shared with her — it is a new patient on the master patient index, minted here, exactly as if the baby had walked in and registered at the front desk. The link to the mother is held by the shared birth record, which both the birth certificate and the immunisation schedule build on.

Tip

Record the birth weight and APGAR carefully at registration — they are part of the newborn’s permanent record and feed both the birth certificate and the baby’s early clinical picture.

What happens next

The newborn now exists as a full patient. Two things follow naturally from this single registration. First, the shared birth record it created is what the registrar uses to Issue a Birth Certificate. Second, registering the baby automatically seeds its immunisation schedule, so the at-birth doses are already waiting to be recorded. The baby can also be admitted, charted and billed from here under its own UHID.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Plot Labour Progress on a Partograph
• Next: Issue a Birth Certificate · Schedule Newborn Immunisations and Reminders
• Related: Issue a Birth Certificate · Schedule Newborn Immunisations and Reminders