A/HRC/27/31 based action. In addition, it encompasses systematic attention to each of the key principles of a human rights-based approach and selected elements of the operational guidance. 73. Neonatal mortality - deaths within the first 28 days of life - accounts for approximately 43 per cent of all child deaths.42 Up to two thirds of those deaths could be prevented if known effective health measures were provided at birth and during the first week of life.43 74. Tackling neonatal mortality includes attention to the care of pregnant women, skilled attendance at delivery, and management of neonatal sepsis. However, low education levels, lack of access to clean water and adequate sanitation, insufficient access to health services (including emergency care at delivery), gender discrimination and a lack of empowerment prevent women from seeking health care and making the best choices for themselves and their children’s health, resulting in delays and poorer health outcomes. A human rights-based approach to addressing neonatal mortality encompasses attention to all of these dimensions of women’s and neonatal health care, including the underlying determinants of neonatal mortality. 75. Attention to the issues raised by the child’s rights to health and survival and other relevant human rights, should be incorporated throughout policy and budget planning processes. These processes require identifying the resource needs for implementation and prioritizing actions through transparent mechanisms of accountability. Legal and policy environment 76. A first step is to ratify international treaties relevant to neonatal mortality and incorporate them into national laws and policies. 77. Adopting and enforcing laws and policies that promote access to high-quality maternal and newborn care in both the public and private sectors is a key component of a human rights-based approach to preventing neonatal mortality. This encompasses laws and policies for: ensuring universal access by women and children to health-care services, birth registration and social services; non-discrimination; notification of maternal and perinatal deaths; context-specific approaches to HIV and infant feeding; and implementing and monitoring the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. 78. In addition, workplace policies are important to support women during pregnancy and in the postnatal period by protecting pregnant women from physically demanding work and supporting breastfeeding in the workplace.44 Health services 79. Given the critical importance of health services to neonatal health in the immediate postnatal period, attention to the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of facilities, goods and services is required. 80. It is important that the availability of life-saving interventions and commodities be secured in all health facilities, including those in remote areas. Attention to nondiscrimination ensures that actions to address neonatal mortality are sufficiently targeted to marginalized communities to eliminate inequalities. 42 43 44 18 WHO, Global Health Observatory. WHO. Newborns: reducing mortality factsheet.2012. ILO.Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183).