Maternal & Child Health

This 5 minute video tells the story of Claire, a midwife from Harlow, who visited the slums of Delhi and rural clinics in Rajasthan to see what life is like for her Indian colleagues and saw the difference that innovative projects and passionate staff can make for mothers and babies. [adapted from publisher]

This 6 minute video tells the story of six British health workers that went to Liberia to see what life was like for their African colleagues. In a country recovering from civil war, they met doctors, nurses and midwives doing everything they could to save children’s lives. [adapted from publisher]

This analysis was conducted with the overall purpose to review the roles and responsibilities of the Ministry staff, including social workers and record clerks at national and regional level, and ascertain the capacity gaps that hinder fulfillment of their obligations towards children and women in the context of the HIV and AIDS pandemic in Namibia. [from introduction]

The infant and maternal mortality rates in the mountainous regions of northern Vietnam are 10 times higher than the national average. This 25 minute film tells the story of a Hmong ethnic minority midwife who has been trained to provide maternal care to her community in the isolated Chi Ca commune. [from publisher]

The promotion of delivery with a skilled birth attendant (SBA) is being promoted as a strategy to reduce neonatal mortality. This study explored whether SBAs had a protective effect against neonatal mortality in three different regions of the world. [from abstract]

The findings from this HRH analysis complement the exercises conducted in 2011 and 2012, demonstrating the emphasis on HRH, but with additional specificity as a result of deconstructing the country commitments into their individual action statements to accelerate progress on Millenium Development Goals 4 and 5. [adapted from author]

This article describes an assessment of the effects of community mobilisation through women’s groups, and health education through female volunteer peer counsellors on rates of infant care, feeding, morbidity, and mortality. [adapted from author]

This article explored the how and why of care decision making by frontline providers of maternal and newborn services in the Greater Accra region of Ghana and determine appropriate interventions needed to support its quality and related maternal and neonatal outcomes. [from abstract]

This article describes a modified Delphi method used to identify a set of indicators for continuously monitoring the quality of maternity care by healthcare professionals. [from abstract]

This article examined the association between a mobile phone intervention and skilled delivery attendance in a resource-limited setting. [from author]

There is a growing consensus that user fees undermine equitable access to essential health care in many low and middle income countries. Changes to fees have major implications for human resources for health (HRH), though the linkages are rarely explicitly examined. This study aimed to examine the inter-linkages in Zimbabwe in order to generate lessons for HRH and fee policies, with particular respect to reproductive, maternal and newborn health. [from abstract]

This study sought to further the evidence on how socio-demographic factors influence community health worker effectiveness in conducting home visits in order to ensure the adoption of evidence based maternal, newborn, child health and nutrition best practices and to increase demand for facility based services, including skilled birth attendance. [adapted from author]

The objective of this article was to identify factors that have contributed to the systematic development of the Cambodian human resources for health system with a focus on midwifery services in response to high maternal mortality in fragile resource-constrained countries. [from abstract]

This study aimed to examine the relationship between workforce capacity and quality of pediatric care in outpatient clinics in Afghanistan. [from abstract]

This study investigated how pregnant women and health care providers experience the existing antenatal and obstetric health care situation in Afghanistan. [from abstract]

The aim of this study was to describe the weaknesses in the provision of acceptable and adequate quality care through the accounts of women who have suffered obstetric fistula, nurse-midwives at both BEmOC and CEmOC health facilities and local community members. [from abstract]

This study explores the role of provider motivation in the quality of maternal and neonatal care. The main research questions were: which factors motivated these respondents to join the health professions; what is understood by the term motivation; what influences their motivation, job satisfaction and the quality of their care; and which incentives do these providers themselves suggest. [adapted from author]

This study identifies the implications of different types of supervision for healthcare worker job satisfaction and intention to leave the workplace in Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique. [adapted from author]

This study was collected data from caregivers who work directly with vulnerable children to explore how care decisions are made by community-based volunteers, and the utility of the Child Status Index at the community level as a job aid. [adapted from summary]

This document includes evidence-based examples of value-added nursing interventions to address noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and reduce the associated risk factors. It also proposes methods for implementing changes in education and clinical practice to strengthen nurses and midwives’ capacity to help prevent, screen and detect NCDs, and then treat and rehabilitate those suffering such diseases. [adapted from summary]

This article describes the evolution and challenges of mHealth and addresses the potential impact of mHealth for midwives. Midwifery leadership in the field of mHealth at this early stage of its development will ensure future health programming that is relevant to the needs of women and the midwives who care for them. [adapted from abstract]

The objectives of this research were to describe women’s health-seeking behaviour and experiences regarding their use of antenatal and postnatal care; their rationale behind the choice of place and delivery; and to learn about the use of traditional practices and resources applied by traditional birth attendants and how they can be linked to the bio-medical health system. [from abstract]

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a referral system - where community health workers (CHW) were trained to refer babies with illnesses or identified danger signs - by describing CHW referral completion rates as well as mothers’ health-care seeking practices. [adapted from author]

This study identified the determinents for using a skilled birth attendant for delivery in order to give policy recommndations and identify barriers in Ethiopia.

Contracting in private sector is promoted in developing countries facing human resources shortages as a challenge to reduce maternal mortality. This study explored provision, practice, performance, barriers to execution and views about contracting in specialists for emergency obstetric care in rural India. [from abstract]

This report outlines the outcomes on maternal and child health of a program focused on building a competent, skilled health workforce in Afghanistan, strengthening delivery of quality health care services, increasing demand for health services, integrating gender awareness and practices into health care services and sustaining systemwide progress. [adapted from author]

This 3 minute video discusses the improvement in maternal mortality rates due to the training and incentive programs that have increased the number of midwives to provide maternal care.

The objective of this guidance is to issue evidence-based recommendations to facilitate universal access to key, effective maternal and newborn interventions through the optimization of health worker roles. [from summary]

This guide contains detailed guidance on how to train safe motherhood action group volunteers in two key areas of their portfolio – maternal and newborn health care.

This study attempted to determine the best way to implement new strategies of medical abortion and increase safety and access using auxiliary nurse midwives trained as skilled birth attendants [adapted from author].