MDG# 5: Improving Maternal Health

This edition of The Soul Beat looks at MDG# 5: Improving Maternal Health.



Please share with us any communication-related projects, programmes, strategic thinking documents and materials related to AI in Africa. Send them to Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com

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Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #5 seeks to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. This issue of The Soul Beat highlights just a few of the ways in which communication strategies address maternal health in Africa, including examples of communication projects, materials to support those projects, and articles analysing and evaluating the impact of communication on MDG #5 in Africa.

For more information on Millennium Development Goal #5 and all of the MDGs, please see the new section on our website The Millennium Development Goals - Overview.


To learn more about the Millennium Development Goals, you can also visit: United Nations Millennium Goals



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PROGRAMME EXPERIENCES



1. Zimachitika - Malawi

Zimachitika ("It Happens" or "Such is Life") is a radio soap of the Story Workshop Educational Trust (SWET). Launched in 1997 as a Unicef sponsored show the programme contains entertaining stories about family health dealing with issues such as barriers to maternal and child health. These barriers include women's lack of empowerment, traditional beliefs that conflict with scientific views of disease "cause and effect", and the attitudes of health service providers to village clients.

Contact Pamela Brooke at: media@malawi.net and swet@media.net



2. Morocco Family Planning/Maternal and Child Health Phase V Project - Morocco

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), this maternal mortality reduction programme focussed on improving maternal health services and the health of children under the age of five. It worked to communicate prevention information to audiences that could effect change such as national and provincial level policy makers, health professionals, and women of reproductive age along with their families. A special emphasis was placed on upgrading both provider skills and health facilities to give women greater access to emergency obstetric care. The programme also included a national communication strategy to raise awareness about maternal mortality.

Contact Lisa Cobb at: lcobb@jhuccp.org



3. Communication for Healthy Living (CHL) - Egypt

Communication for Healthy Living is a health communication project in Egypt aimed at enabling families and communities to protect and maintain their health related to issues such as family planning and reproductive health, maternal and child health and infectious diseases including HIV and AIDS. The USAID project promotes behaviour change by providing communication support toward improved health outcomes at community level.

Contact Ron Hess at: rhess@jhuhcp-eg.org

4. Ashreat Al Amal (Sails of Hope) - Sudan

Ashreat Al Amal (Sails of Hope) is a radio serial drama that deals with reproductive health issues in Sudan. The programme deals with HIV and AIDS education and the importance of educating women as a means to a better life. It also looks at themes like female circumcision and pre-natal care. One of the topics addresses the issue of family planning and pre-natal care by telling the story of a mother who suffers from acute anaemia resulting from non-birth spacing, and repeated, prolonged bleeding from the births of her many children.

Contact William N. Ryerson ryerson@populationmedia.org or Kriss Barker krissbarker@populationmedia.org

5. Reproductive Health Care for Somali Refugees - Yemen

Marie Stopes International Yemen is offering reproductive health and family planning services and education sessions to Somali refugees living in Yemen. Services include the provision of family planning, diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), antenatal and postnatal care and the provision of obstetric and paediatric services. The education sessions aim to increase awareness among male and female refugees about general health and reproductive health issues in an effort to motivate changes in attitudes and behaviours especially with regard to contraception, birth spacing, and reduction in family size.

Contact Fowzia H Jaffer msfowzia@y.net.ye OR Jane Niewczasinski jane.niewczasinski@mariestopes.org.uk OR Samantha Guy sam.guy@mariestopes.org.uk

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MATERIALS

6. Love, Labor, Loss: A Documentary Film on Obstetric Fistula for ICPD +10

LOVE, LABOR, LOSS is a documentary film which aims to challenge the global apathy towards women's reproductive rights by profiling a special group of women who live with obstetric fistula - the most debilitating and ostracizing childbearing disorder affecting over 2 million women in the developing world. Filmed on location in Niger, West Africa, LOVE, LABOR, LOSS follows women who live at the Niamey National Hospital with the hope of having their fistulas repaired.



7. Strengthening Grandmother Networks to Improve Community Nutrition: Experience from Senegal

In Africa older women, or grandmothers, traditionally have considerable influence on maternal and child health matters at the household level. However, most maternal and child health (MCH) programmes focus exclusively on women of reproductive age. In a MCH project in Senegal, a community study showed that grandmothers and other older women continue to play a leading role in all household MCH decisions and activities. Based on these findings, an innovative, participatory nutrition education strategy was developed, which focused on grandmothers. A follow-up evaluation revealed positive changes in grandmothers' knowledge and advice to younger women, and in the younger women's nutritional practices.



8. Communicating Safe Motherhood in Morocco

This document describes the development and implementation of the first communication strategy for safe motherhood in Morocco and its key interventions. The maternal mortality prevention program comprised two essential components. The first aimed to improve women's emergency obstetric care, while the second component focused on building public awareness of the problem of maternal mortality and the means to prevent it.



9. Malaria During Pregnancy Resource Package: Tools to Facilitate Policy Change and Implementation

This package contains a variety of tools designed to assist policymakers, public health professionals, and health managers in implementing programmes that will reduce the incidence of malaria during pregnancy and provide treatment for pregnant women with malaria.

10. African Journal of Reproductive Health (AJRH)

This publication is a multidisciplinary and international journal that aims to publish original research, review articles, short reports and commentaries on reproductive health in Africa. The journal strives to provide a forum for African authors, as well as others working in Africa, to share findings on all aspects of reproductive health and aims to disseminate relevant and useful information on reproductive health throughout the continent of Africa.

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PULSE POLL ON AVIAN INFLUENZA



Soul Beat Africa has extended the pulse poll on avian influenza to March 13.



Please let us know what you think and participate in our Pulse Poll



Do you agree or disagree?



Governments and civil society in Africa have adequate communication plans in place to provide sensible health information and avoid media sensationalism related to new Avian Influenza outbreaks on the continent.



DISCUSSION



Soul Beat Africa will also be running a discussion forum on Avian Influenza in Africa towards the end of March. If you would like to participate or find out more please contact Anja Venth at: aventh@comminit.com



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STRATEGIC THINKING



11. Making Motherhood Safer in Egypt

Published by the Population Reference Bureau in March 2004, this 8-page policy brief describes Egypt's efforts to reduce maternal deaths. Included in this policy brief is an overall history of maternal mortality in Egypt, a description of common models of service delivery in safe motherhood care, and a list of "Lessons Learned".



12. Improving the Ghanaian Safe Motherhood Programme - Evaluating the Effectiveness of Alternative Training Models and Other Performance Improvement Factors on the Quality of Maternal Care and Client Outcomes

In 1995, the Ghana Health Services of the Ministry of Health launched the National Safe Motherhood Programme. The programme focused on reducing the high levels of maternal mortality and morbidity through improving the quality and coverage of maternal health services, and through increasing awareness about maternal health issues in communities.



13. Behavior Change Perspective on Integrating PMTCT & Safe Motherhood Programmes

During the past several years, researchers have learned many valuable lessons about reducing Mother-to-Child Transmission (MTCT) of HIV in resource-poor settings. One of the greatest challenges facing programme planners is the need to translate lessons learned from short-term clinical trials to date into effective, actionable, large-scale programme interventions. This discussion paper, published in 2003, was intended to encourage dialogue and generate feedback from PMTCT and Safe Motherhood (SM) programme planners and implementers who share the responsibility for shaping interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and to improve maternal and newborn survival through conventional safe motherhood interventions.



14. Integrating HIV Prevention and Care into Maternal and Child Health Care (MCH) Settings: Lessons Learned from Horizon Studies

In order to increase the reach of effective HIV and AIDS prevention and care interventions, strategies have been developed that integrate HIV prevention and care activities into MCH care settings. MCH care settings offer women and their families an important entry point to critical services because of their widespread availability and community acceptance. Moreover many women make repeated visits for antenatal, postpartum, and infant care, thus increasing their potential access to vital HIV/AIDS services. This report, from a three-day consultation in Maasai Mara, Kenya, July 23-25 2001, documents lessons learned from Horizons intervention studies that focus on integrating HIV prevention and care activities into MCH settings.



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EVALUATIONS



15. Mobile Phones for Mother and Child Care

Egypt has been cited by the World Health Organization (WHO)'s World Health Report 2005 as having made significant progress in addressing maternal and child health and this report shows that mobile phone technology has been central to that progress and has the potential to play a key role in promoting maternal and child health in developing countries.



16. Impact Data - Rural Extended Services and Care for Ultimate Emergency Relief (RESCUER) Programme - Uganda

Launched in March, 1996, the RESCUER programme was a referral project designed to address the high maternal mortality rate in Uganda using a solar powered radio communication system to link the traditional rural community health providers with the formal health delivery system in a cost-effective way. The impact data outlines some of the programme lessons of the project.



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The Soul Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Soul Beat to the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com