Hi Dean!

Of the two components of KMC, breastfeeding assistance seems to me much more bottlenecked by nurses than skin to skin contact. That is, while breastfeeding assistance might need a nurse to provide bespoke information to each mother in the moment, skin-to-skin contact seems less individually specific and an easier piece of advice to share impersonally and by non-experts.

Two questions about this:

1. Is the distinction I drew above directionally correct, or does skin to skin contact require as much in person expert attention as breastfeeding assistance?
2. If the distinction is directionally correct, might it be possible to scale the provision of the skin to skin contact advice for much cheaper than it would take to hire a lot more nurses (some kind of information provision/belief change intervention in econ jargon)?
   1.  This could look like some kind of door-to-door campaign by community health workers, or a video version of text-message reminders for vaccines (though an internet requirement might screen out some of the households we care most about).
   2. Are the two parts of KMC strong complements in a way that would make the provision of just one of them much less effective?

Two questions:

1. What do you think of the Coasian solution to Punjab/Haryana's paddy burning where Delhi (mostly) pays for the machines  required to prevent the burning? Per the estimates Shruti cites here, the benefits would be more than 10x the cost. Are the main barriers to this political (it would be a bad look for the Delhi govt to pay Punjabi farmers), or something else?

2. The Delhi metro with an average daily ridership of over 5.5 million trips likely prevents a massive amount of tailpipe pollution. A larger, better run bus fleet would likely have a similar effect. Even if this is distinctly not  a neglected area, influencing city-wide policy has potentially massive scale. Are there any cost-effective opportunities for philanthropists speed to speed up the development/improve the efficacy of public transport systems? Maybe in smaller cities with less expertise?

Here's the website, and here's their 501(c)3  approval letter. They seem to have a page describing their maternal health research, but not their involvement on the ground with the KMC program.

EDIT: the maternal health page has the following paragraph: 

"In recent months, r.i.c.e. researchers are pursuing a project to promote Breastfeeding and Care Practices for Newborn and Low Birthweight Babies in Uttar Pradesh. The program is based on our earlier work. The program will test messages for breastfeeding and newborn care counseling to family members of newborns. It also intends to identify the existing systemic gaps in an adequate newborn care in hospitals and at home, and how can practitioners and caregivers overcome those."