Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health
- Early Reflections on Mphatlalatsane, a Maternal and Neonatal Quality Improvement Initiative Implemented During COVID-19 in South Africa
A quality improvement initiative for maternal and neonatal health care demonstrates that a responsive intervention design and implementation approach mitigates threats to clinical services during COVID-19.
- Changes in Child Undernutrition and Overweight in India From 2006 to 2021: An Ecological Analysis of 36 States
India has historically displayed high levels of child stunting and low levels of child overweight. Despite improvements in human development indicators between 2006 and 2021, population-level reductions in child stunting have slowed and child overweight is rising faster than predicted by human development indicators.
- Designing for Impact and Institutionalization: Applying Systems Thinking to Sustainable Postpartum Family Planning Approaches for First-Time Mothers in Bangladesh
Public health practitioners often design interventions prioritizing potential impact over sustainability. To assess the potential for impact and institutionalization, we applied systems thinking to postpartum family planning approaches for first-time mothers in Bangladesh.
- Improving the Quality of Health Care in Special Neonatal Care Units of India: A Before and After Intervention Study
In low- and middle-income countries, facility-based neonatal care practices can be improved using a collaborative cross-learning quality improvement approach incorporating remote mentoring, coaching, and supportive supervision.
- Maternal Service Coverage and Its Relationship To Health Information System Performance: A Linked Facility and Population-Based Survey in Ethiopia
Coverage for most maternal services showed promising performance. Improving the health information system performance can further improve maternal service uptake and quality.
- Maternal and Child Health Care Service Disruptions and Recovery in Mozambique After Cyclone Idai: An Uncontrolled Interrupted Time Series Analysis
Timely and relevant information is vital to help identify and track areas of improvement after extreme weather events and during emergencies to prioritize limited resources. Routine data can provide useful evidence of health system performance during and after natural disasters, contributing to an effective and efficient response.
- Re-envisioning Kangaroo Mother Care Implementation Through a Socioecological Model: Lessons From Malawi
Successful kangaroo mother care (KMC) efforts must understand and address social norms that influence this practice. The current study offers a model for how to connect social norms analysis to specific actions to improve KMC implementation.
- Coverage and Drivers to Reaching the Last Child With Vaccination in Urban Settings: A Mixed-Methods Study in Kampala, Uganda
Most children in Kampala city are not fully vaccinated as the health system is not designed to suit the complex urban setting.
- Maintaining Continuity of Care for Expectant Mothers in Kenya During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study of MomCare
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya, the MomCare platform enabled care-seeking behaviors to increase and quality of care to be maintained for expectant mothers despite social, economic, and access barriers.
- Identifying the High-Risk Fetus in the Low-Risk Mother Using Fetal Doppler Screening
Continuous-wave Doppler ultrasound of the umbilical artery offers an inexpensive and scalable method of detecting undiagnosed fetal growth restriction. Using Doppler to screen low-risk pregnancies in low- and middle-income countries identifies fetuses at risk of stillbirth and, when managed appropriately, results in a step change reduction in the stillbirth rate.