Community-Based Maternal Health Care: Meeting Women Where They Are
Posted onAll women deserve respectful, culturally sensitive, women-centered care that takes into account how, where and with whom they want to receive maternal health care. In order to ensure that this happens, health systems must meet women where they are—both literally and figuratively. Community-based approaches can be effective strategies for providing women with the kind of care they want and need in the place they choose…read more
Maternal Health Care in Kenya: Poor Quality for Poor Women?
Posted onDespite Differences in Culture, the United States and India Fall Short in Childbirth in Similar Ways
Posted onObstetrician Neel Shah explains how a trip to India for the 2017 Human Rights in Childbirth meeting led him to a humbling realization: When it comes to childbirth, both India and the United States fall short in surprisingly similar ways. In both countries, women often receive either too little or too much care…read more
Quality, Equity and Dignity: A Solution for Every Woman, Every Newborn, Everywhere
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The government of Malawi recently hosted national and global health leaders in its capital, Lilongwe, to launch the Network for Improving the Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (the Network). The vision is an ambitious one — to halve the number of maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths in participating health facilities within five years in nine initial countries. The Network aims to build on and accelerate progress while focusing on quality, equity and dignity…read more
Strengthening Health System Governance for Improved Quality of Maternal Health Care in Nigeria
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Using an adapted version of the World Health Organization governance actions, the Partnership for Transforming the Health System II Project illustrates the role of governance in improving the quality of maternal care by increasing access to skilled birth attendants who can provide active management of the third stage of labor in Nigeria…read more
Improving the Quality of Maternal and Newborn Health in Low-Resource Settings: Lessons From the Saving Mothers, Giving Life Program
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As we work to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and achieve equity in care, the global health community realizes the need to increase efforts to ensure access to quality maternity services. We can draw some valuable lessons on quality care from our experience over the past three years with Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL). This public-private partnership has produced impressive improvements in maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa by addressing all three of the delays to receiving quality care: seeking appropriate care; accessing care in a timely manner; and receiving high quality, woman-centered care…read more
Measuring the Quality of Family Planning
Posted onIn October 2015, researchers, programmers and policymakers gathered in Bellagio, Italy to discuss strategies for improving, standardizing and simplifying the measurement of quality in family planning. The resulting papers, along with commentaries from Dominic Montagu and Kim Longfield, were published by Metrics for Management in late 2016. The papers in this series provide an opportunity to review and learn from what has already been done and work towards consensus on a more effective measurement strategy moving forward…read more
Kangaroo Mother Care: A Strategy to Improve the Quality of Postpartum Care
Posted onRaising awareness of the value of kangaroo mother care in all global healthcare settings is a key public health strategy towards realizing Sustainable Development Goal 3—particularly the target for preventable neonatal deaths, which are often prematurity-related. For KMC to be implemented and scaled more widely, a paradigm shift needs to occur away from routine care practices in the early postnatal period involving the separation of mothers and babies and towards a “zero-separation” model of care…read more
Making People-Centered Health Services a Reality in Zambia
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Like many countries, Zambia struggled for years to improve skilled birth attendance; Recently, however, some rural districts have performed much better. Zambia has moved to make people-centered health services a reality by using maternal health as an entry point for creating a more responsive health system…read more