Illness recognition and appropriate care seeking for newborn complications in rural Oromia and Amhara regional states of Ethiopia

Background: Ethiopia has made significant progress in reducing child mortality but newborn mortality has stagnated at around 29 deaths per 1000 births. The Maternal Health in Ethiopia Partnership (MaNHEP) was a 3.5-year implementation project aimed at developing a community-oriented model of maternal and newborn health in rural Ethiopia and to position it for scale up. […]

The status of maternal and newborn health care services in Zanzibar

Background: It is estimated that 287,000 women worldwide die annually from pregnancy and childbirth-related conditions, and 6.9 million under-five children die each year, of which about 3 million are newborns. Most of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The maternal health situation in Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar is similar to other sub-Saharan countries. This study […]

Effects of computerized decision support on maternal and neonatal health-worker performance in the context of combined implementation with performance-based incentivisation in Upper East Region, Ghana: a qualitative study of professional perspectives

Background: Computerized decision support systems (CDSS) and performance-based incentives (PBIs) can improve health-worker performance. However, there is minimal evidence on the combined effects of these interventions or perceived effects among maternal and child healthcare providers in low-resource settings. We thus aimed to explore the perceptions of maternal and child healthcare providers of CDSS support in […]

Clients’ perceptions of the quality of post-abortion care in eight health facilities in Dakar, Senegal

Post-abortion care (PAC) integrates elements that are vital for women’s survival after abortion complications and their ability to meet their subsequent fertility intentions. Currently, the utilization of PAC among women in need remains too low, particularly in settings where unsafe abortion is an appreciable cause of maternal mortality. Interventions have aimed at addressing unmet need; […]

Usability and feasibility of a mobile health system to provide comprehensive antenatal care in low-income countries: PANDA mHealth pilot study in Madagascar

Background: Madagascar’s maternal health mortality ratio in 2013 was 478 deaths per 100,000 live births. Most deaths are related to direct complications during pregnancy and childbirth and could be reduced by providing comprehensive antenatal care (ANC). Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the usability and feasibility of a mobile health system (mHealth) […]

A curriculum model for multidisciplinary training of midwife sonographers in a low resource setting

In many low-resource settings, less than 5% of pregnant women can access ultrasound during pregnancy. Thus, gestational age is often difficult to determine, multiple pregnancies are diagnosed late and foetal and pregnancy-related anomalies can go undetected. A pilot solution was designed beyond the traditional approach of increasing numbers of qualified radiologists, gynaecologists and sonographers. An […]

A lost cause? Extending verbal autopsy to investigate biomedical and socio-cultural causes of maternal death in Burkina Faso and Indonesia

Maternal mortality in developing countries is characterised by disadvantage and exclusion. Women who die whilst pregnant are typically poor and live in low-income and rural settings where access to quality care is constrained and where deaths, within and outside hospitals, often go unrecorded and unexamined. Verbal autopsy (VA) is an established method of determining cause(s) […]

Immunologic pattern of hepatitis B infection among exposed and non-exposed babies in A PMTCT program in low resource setting: Does every exposed newborn require 200IU of hepatitis B immunoglobulin?

Background: Hepatitis B (HBV) is a vaccine-preventable infection. Vaccination programs instituted for virtual elimination of vertical and horizontal transmission are rarely evaluated. The prohibitive cost of HBV immunoprophylaxis (HBIG) engenders restrictive access in low-resource settings. Objective: Comparison of the immunologic pattern of HBV seromarkers and mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) rates among exposed and non-exposed babies who […]

Point-of-care testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections to improve birth outcomes in high-burden, low-income settings: Study protocol for a cluster randomized crossover trial (the wantaim trial, papua new guinea) [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

Background: Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Trichomonas vaginalis and bacterial vaginosis have been associated with preterm birth and low birth weight, and are highly prevalent among pregnant women in many low-and middle-income settings. There is conflicting evidence on the potential benefits of screening and treating these infections in pregnancy. Newly available diagnostic technologies make it possible, […]

How do pregnant women and new mothers navigate and respond to challenges in accessing health care? Perspectives from rural South Africa

Women in low- and middle-income countries and in contexts characterized by inequality face various interpersonal and structural barriers when accessing formal maternal and child health (MCH) services. These barriers persist even in contexts where programs to increase access to services, such as community health worker (CHW) interventions, have been implemented. However, while barriers to accessing […]