Maternal & Child Health

Yemen presents a very challenging environment for delivering health services to rural areas, and Yemen’s conservative culture does not allow women to receive health services from men. Through a pilot program, the Extending Service Delivery assisted midwives with setting up private practices in rural communities where fixed facilities and services do not exist, or are far away. [from author]

There is little research on HIV awareness and practices of traditional birth attendants (TBA) in India. This study investigated knowledge and attitudes among rural TBA in Karnataka as part of a project examining how traditional birth attendants could be integrated into prevention-of-mother-to-child transmission of HIV programs in India. [from abstract]

Excitement is rapidly growing concerning the potential for community- based primary health care (CBPHC) to accelerate progress in reducing the tragedy of millions of children dying world-wide each year from readily preventable or treatable conditions. This report summarizes the current research findings concerning the effectiveness of CBPHC in improving the health of children in high-mortality, resource-poor settings. [from summary]

The period of birth is critical in the life of the mother and the baby. Ideally, it needs to be assisted in a competent manner by a skilled birth attendant (SBA) supported by an enabling environment. This goal has yet to be achieved in all countries. It is essential to upgrade the skills of existing SBAs in managing both the mother and baby, and to supply the necessary resources. Another key strategy is to implement suitable community-based interventions to achieve the required behaviors in family members, health workers, and volunteers to improve newborn health. [abstract]

This report documents some of the processes undertaken to integrate gender and sexuality factors into a maternal health project in Uttar Pradesh, India from 2007-2009. [from foreword]

This document reviews the ISOFI program. The iterative steps of this system focus on building staff and organisational capacity to critically analyse the social construction of gender and explore how gender influences personal values and beliefs and programmatic designs and choices. In turn, through the analysis-reflection-action cycle of the ISOFI Innovation System, staff can help community health providers and other stakeholders to analyse gender issues, reflect on local barriers and opportunities, and make implementation plans to catalyze change. [from author]

This document describes the key effective interventions organized in packages across the continuum of care through pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, newborn care and care of the child. The packages are defined for community and/or facility levels in developing countries and provide guidance on the essential components needed to assure adequacy and quality of care. [from publisher]

This factsheet discusses the roles, resposibilities and impact on maternal mortality of skilled birth attendants.

This is the eleventh annual State of the World’s Mothers report. The focus is on the critical shortage of health workers in the developing world and the urgent need for more female health workers to save the lives of mothers, newborn babies and young children. There is a video, and executive summary, the full report and an interactive version of the report. [from publisher]

This case study thus describes an example of a private sector pay for performance voucher program targeting reproductive health and offers lessons for countries that are considering implementing similar schemes. [from author]

Each country profile presents the most recent available information on selected demographic measures of maternal, newborn and child survival and nutritional status, coverage rates for priority interventions, and selected indicators of equity, policy support, human resources and financial flows. [from publisher]

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of Oportunidades (Human Development Program)on skilled attendance at delivery in rural areas through the application of a variety of evaluation techniques, taking advantage of the experimental design implemented for the evaluation of this program in rural areas. [from introduction]

This article outlines a project that deployed short videos on mobile phones designed to motivate health workers and persuade pregnant village women to use health services. The project also asked health workers to record their own videos. The results show evidence that the creation and use of videos helped engage village women in dialogue, showed positive effects toward health worker motivation and learning, and motivated key community influencers to participate in promoting the health workers. [adapted from abstract]

Ensuring skilled attendant at birth is acknowledged as one of the most effective interventions to reduce maternal deaths. Exploring the potential of community-based interventions in increasing the utilization of obstetric care, the study aimed at developing, testing and assesses a community-based safe motherhood intervention in Mtwara rural District of Tanzania. [from abstract]

This study contends that increasing coverage of skilled delivery care and achieving the full implementation of Tanzania’s Focused Antenatal Care Package in Ngorongoro depends upon improved training and monitoring of health care providers, and greater family participation in antenatal care visits. [adapted from abstract]

Increasing interest has been shown in the use of lay health workers (LHWs) for the delivery of a wide range of maternal and child health (MCH) services in low and middle income countries. However, robust evidence of the effects of LHW interventions in improving MCH delivery is limited. The objective of this document is to review evidence from randomized controlled trials on the effects of LHW interventions in improving MCH and addressing key high burden diseases. [adapted from abstract]

Gaps in the midwifery tutors’ knowledge on comprehensive abortion care (CAC) have resulted in most midwives in Ghana not knowing the legal indications under which safe abortion care can be provided, and lacking the skills and competencies for CAC services. The aim of this study is to assess the capacity and willingness of midwifery tutors to teach contraception, post abortion care and legal termination in Ghana. [from abstract]

This article reviews the available evidence on private sector utilization and quality of care. It provides a framework for analysing the private sector’s influence on child health outcomes. [from abstract]

Thanks to a small cadre of village volunteers, trained in basic health-care concepts, western Uganda is beginning to see some promising improvements in child health. [from author]

In rural settings, the promotion of household and community health practices through community health workers (CHWs) is among the key strategies to improve child health. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of CHWs in the promotion of basic child health services in rural Mali. [from abstract]

The aim of this study was to provide a baseline assessment in PMTCT in the traditional health sector to determine the views of women who have used the services of traditional practitioners before, during and/or after pregnancy; and to conduct formative research with traditional health practitioners (THPs), i.e. herbalists, diviners and traditional birth attendants on HIV, pregnancy care, delivery and infant care. [adapted from abstract]

We conducted a survey among nurses and midwives working at district level in Sudan and Zambia to determine their roles and functions in polio eradication and measles elimination programs. [from abstract]

This paper aims to describe the design, methods and approaches used to assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the skilled care initiative in reducing pregnancy-related and perinatal mortality in Ouargaye district, Burkina Faso. [from summary]

The aim of this paper is to assess to what extent a skilled care initiative was associated with pregnancy-related mortality in Ouargaye district, Burkina Faso. [from summary]

A program to create a cadre of skilled birth attendants for home births was launched by the Government of Bangladesh Bangladesh in 2004. This article suggests that the task-shifting program can only serve as an interim measure rather than a long-term solution as more women decide to seek institutional delivery and professional midwifery care. [adapted from abstract]

This paper assesses the development of maternal health services and policies in Bangladesh by reviewing policy and strategy documents since the country's independence in 1971, with primary focus on rural areas where three-fourths of the total population of reside. [adapted from abstract]

In resource-poor settings, the facility-based maternal death review or audit is one of the most promising strategies to improve health service performance. We aim to explore and describe health workers’ perceptions of facility-based maternal death reviews and to identify barriers to and facilitators of the implementation of this approach in pilot health facilities of Senegal. [from abstract]

This article discusses the role of traditional healers in pediatric care in South Africa. [adapted from introduction]

The Capacity Project partnered with the Ministry of Health and other organizations to perform a pilot study to demonstrate the efficiency and the safety of matrones using active management of the third stage of labor with skilled birth attendants who were authorized to perform the practice and assessed factors that could affect their ability. [from author]

Efforts to formalize the role of traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in maternal and neonatal health programmes have had limited success. Continued attendance by TBAs at home deliveries suggests the potential to influence maternal and neonatal outcomes. The objective of this qualitative study was to identify and understand the knowledge, attitudes and practices of TBAs in rural Nepal. [adapted from abstract]