How Kangaroo Mother Care Has Improved Newborn Health Outcomes and Supported Moms in Kenya

Posted on

By: Lutomia Mangala, Health Specialist, UNICEF Kenya

Kangaroo mother care involves prolonged continuous skin-to-skin contact between a mother or her surrogate and her preterm or low birth weight infant. For stable preterm infants, this low-cost, high-impact intervention has been shown to offer better thermal regulation and greater health benefits compared to conventional care…read more

Placenta Accreta Spectrum Disorders: A Critical Absence from the Cesarean Section Debate

Posted on

By: Eric Jauniaux, Professor in Obstetrics and Fetal Medicine, EGA Institute for Women's Health, Faculty of Population Health Sciences, University College London; Johan Vos, Chief Executive, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO)

A critical absence from the recent “cesarean section debate” has been the long-term health impact of excessively high c-section rates—including increased risk of miscarriage, unexplained stillbirth, placenta previa, placenta accreta and abruption in subsequent pregnancies…read more

10 Lessons From The BetterBirth Study

Posted on

By: Katherine Semrau, Director of the BetterBirth Program at Ariadne Labs, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital Division of Global Health Equity

The BetterBirth Program team at Ariadne Labs and partners recently led one of the world’s largest maternal newborn health trials in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Using bedside peer-coaching of birth attendants and facility managers, along with the World Health Organization’s Safe Childbirth Checklist, researchers focused on improving birth attendants’ use of basic care practices. The results showed marked improvement in care—but no reduction in mortality rates…read more