Recent research conducted by the Maternal Health Task Force, along with colleagues from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the World Health Organization (WHO), Instituto de Cooperación Social Integrare (ICS Integrare), University of Central Lancashir, and Centro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales (CREP) has been published in the March 2016 issue of the British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (BJOG) and is now available open-access.
The publications, including two research articles and two systematic reviews, are part of the Adding Content to Contact project, which focuses on strengthening the quality of services women receive both before and after giving birth. The goal of the Adding Content to Contact project is to assess the barriers and opportunities for adopting and implementing cost-effective interventions for antenatal and postnatal care.
Among the findings, the researchers cite the need to streamline antenatal care (ANC) guidelines as well as providers’ responsibility to deliver culturally sensitive ANC. The research also identifies successes and challenges of ANC and postnatal care (PNC) and offers recommendations for ensuring uptake of services in low-resource settings. Finally, the research discusses both the barriers to and key elements of integrated antenatal care services.
Click below to access the publications:
- Antenatal and postnatal care: A review of innovative models for improving availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of services in low-resource settings
- Antenatal care for healthy pregnant women: A mapping of interventions from existing guidelines to inform the development of new WHO guidance on antenatal care
- What matters to women: A systematic scoping review to identify the processes and outcomes of antenatal care provision that are important to healthy pregnant women
- Barriers and enablers to integrating maternal and child health services to antenatal care in low- and middle-income countries
The research also garnered highlights from Dr. Michael Marsh, BJOG Deputy Editor-in-Chief, as well as Nynke van den Broek, one of BJOG’s Scientific Editors:
Read the Editor’s Choice commentary