• Retire the pap smear. “It is like a horse and buggy. It was great when that was all we had.”
• Visual inspection and DNA tests are both more sensitive, cost less, and have lower loss to follow up.
• Increase coverage of screening in both developed and developing countries.
• Focus on neglected groups.
• Focus on women over 30.
• Avoid over screening.

The researchers conducted the study at a hospital in Karnataka, India. As part of the checklist-based program, local staff reviewed deficiencies in their current practices and undertook training on using the WHO Safe Childbirth Checklist. The 29 items on the checklist address the major causes of maternal deaths (e.g. hemorrhage, infection, obstructed labor, and hypertensive disease), intrapartum-related stillbirths, and neonatal deaths (e.g. complications of premature birth, infection, and birth asphyxia).

 

Researchers observed the childbirth practices of health care workers during 499 birth events—the period from admission to discharge—prior to introducing the checklist to establish a baseline, and then compared the results with 795 birth events after implementing the checklist.

 

The results reveal that the number of essential practices performed by the hospital workers increased from an average of 10 of 29 at baseline to 25 of 29 after implementing the checklist. “The checklist program actively prompted health care workers to remember to complete proven practices such as handwashing, infection management, postpartum bleeding assessment, and breastfeeding within an hour after birth,” said Dr. Bhala Kodkany, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and director of JNMC Women’s and Children’s Health Research Unit in Karnataka, India, and a co-investigator.

• In 2010, the global maternal mortality ratio was 210 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest maternal mortality ratio at 500 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.

 

• In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman faces a 1 in 39 lifetime risk of dying due to pregnancy or childbirth-related complications. In South-eastern Asia the risk is 1 in 290 and in developed countries, it is 1 in 3,800.

 

• Ten countries have 60 per cent of the global maternal deaths: India (56,000), Nigeria (40,000), Democratic Republic of the Congo (15,000), Pakistan (12,000), Sudan (10,000), Indonesia (9,600), Ethiopia (9,000), United Republic of Tanzania (8,500), Bangladesh (7,200) and Afghanistan (6,400).

 

• Ten countries have already reached the MDG target of a 75 per cent reduction in maternal death: Belarus, Bhutan, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Iran, Lithuania, Maldives, Nepal, Romania and Viet Nam.

Reporting to the Assistant Director of Finance and Grants Administration (ADF), this position will provide financial and grant management expertise and leadership within the Department of Global Health and Population (GHP) at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). As a member of the GHP finance team, the Senior Grants Manager (SGM) will oversee a diverse and challenging portfolio of non-federal and federal grants, subawards and contracts, and will be responsible for managing related non-sponsored funds as well.

 

Within his/her portfolio, the SGM will provide financial and grants management support primarily to the Women and Health Initiative (W&HI), managing, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating multiple grants, subcontracts and service agreements (both foreign and domestic). S/he will assist the Director of the W&HI and the W&HI’s Project Management team with project budget development, financial management and compliance, and reporting.

 

The SGM will be responsible for both pre- and post-award management. Pre-award responsibilities include grant proposal preparation and review of application requirements. Post-award responsibilities include budget reconciliations, projections, and updates; final financial reporting to the sponsor in coordination with Harvard’s sponsored programs office; coordination of timely effort reporting; submission of timely payroll changes for project personnel; reviewing and approving accounts payable, and monitoring expenses to ensure appropriate expense allocation to sponsored awards.

 

The SGM will ensure compliance with federal, state, granting agency and university regulations and will serve as the principal source of information/guidance for faculty and program staff on complex administrative and fiscal policies and procedures. The SGM will maintain strong relationships with SPA and OSP to ensure compliance with HSPH, University, and sponsor regulations. The SGM will identify problems and initiate or recommend remedial action, advise project staff on established policies and procedures, interpret the terms and conditions of the sponsoring organization, and perform related job duties as required.

 

The W&HI, housed within the Department of Global Health and Population, advances a unique agenda simultaneously focused on women’s health needs and women’s critical roles as both formal and informal participants in healthcare systems. The W&HI’s portfolio includes several projects including the Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF), aimed at reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the MHTF will improve global maternal health policies and programs by strengthening the maternal health community through expanding access to critical knowledge, evidence and information; providing a neutral space for scientific debate and consensus building; strengthening the capacity of developing country professionals; and expanding the knowledge base on how to improve and evaluate the content and quality of maternal health care.

1. The State of the World’s Midwives report provided the first comprehensive analysis of midwifery services in countries where the needs are greatest.
2. The MHTF & PLoS launched an open-access collection on quality of maternal health care.
3. UNICEF & UNFPA launched the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities, to increase access to maternal, child, and newborn health commodities.
4. Joyce Banda, an advocate for women’s health & rights, became Malawi’s first female president.
5. The White Ribbon Alliance, along with many partners, developed the Respectful Maternity Care Charter: The Universal Rights of Childbearing Women.
6. Direct Relief International, Fistula Foundation, & UNFPA partnered to develop the first-ever Global Fistula Map, outlining the global landscape of the issue.
7. The first-ever estimates of preterm birth rates by country were published in a new report, Born Too Soon: A Global Action Report on Preterm Birth.
8. Save the Children’s 13th State of the World’s Mothers report focused on nutrition during the period from pregnancy through the child’s 2nd birthday, the first 1,000 days
9. The World Health Organization added Misoprostol to the List of Essential Medicines, a critical step toward preventing post-partum hemorrhage.
10. Melinda Gates announced plans to help raise $4 billion to dramatically increase access to family planning around the world by 2020.

Save the Children's thirteenth State of the World's Mothers report shows Niger as the worst place to be a mother in the world — replacing Afghanistan for the first time in two years. Norway comes in at first place. The Best and Worst Places to Be a Mom ranking, which compares 165 countries around the globe, looks at factors such as a mother's health, education and economic status, as well as critical child indicators such as health and nutrition. This year, the United States ranks 25th.

Solomon Islands is one of the least developed countries in the world, yet it performs very well on early nutrition indicators, demonstrating that a strong policy environment and individual adoption of lifesaving nutrition practices can matter more than national wealth when it comes to saving children’s lives. Within an hour after birth, 75 percent of babies in Solomon Islands are put to the breast.

Many children are born undernourished because their mothers are undernourished. As much as half of all child stunting occurs in utero, underscoring the critical importance of better nutrition for women and girls. In most developing countries, the nutritional status of women and girls is compromised by the cumulative and synergistic effects of many risk factors. These include: limited access to food, lack of power at the household level, traditions and customs that limit women’s consumption of certain nutrient-rich foods, the energy demands of heavy physical labor, the nutritional demands of frequent pregnancies and breastfeeding, and the toll of frequent infections with limited access to health care.

Now the foundation, which is worth almost $34 billion, is putting her agenda into practice. In July it’s teaming up with the British government to cosponsor a summit of world leaders in London, to start raising the $4 billion the foundation says it will cost to get 120 million more women access to contraceptives by 2020. And in a move that could be hugely significant for American women, it is pouring money into the long-neglected field of contraceptive research, seeking entirely new methods of birth control. Ultimately Gates hopes to galvanize a global movement. “When I started to realize that that needed to get done in family planning, I finally said, OK, I’m the person that’s going to do that,” she says.

Objective To assess the level and determinants of awareness of the danger signs and symptoms of pregnancy complication among pregnant Jordanian women aged 15 years and older.

 

Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study of 350 women attending prenatal care services was performed. Interviews were conducted at 4 public-health centers in Zarqa, Jordan, using a structured questionnaire. Awareness was defined as “knowing at least 4 danger signs and symptoms”.

 

Results Overall, 84.8% of the women interviewed were not aware of danger signs and symptoms of pregnancy complication. Sociodemographic factors—including duration of education and current employment; husband's duration of education; family size; and whether women were given information about danger signs and symptoms—were associated with awareness in a binary analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that education level of study participants, their husbands' education level, and receiving information about danger signs and symptoms were all associated with awareness (P = 0.02 for all associations).

 

Conclusion Awareness of danger signs and symptoms of pregnancy complication among women in Jordan is low. A need exists to provide prenatal care that includes sufficient information about pregnancy-related danger signs and symptoms to meet the need for safe motherhood, as pointed out by the Millennium Development Goals.

Midwife literally translates to “With a Woman” from Latin, reflecting the practice that from time immemorial, women sought the assistance of other women close to them at the time of labour and childbirth. Midwives have therefore been part of the human experience since time immemorial.

 

Up until the advent of modern midwifery in approximately the 17th and 18th centuries when the first schools of midwifery training appeared in Europe, the whole world had approximately the same levels of maternal death during childbirth, roughly 20%, with the most feared causes being hemorrhage and puerperal fever, or infection after childbirth. Today, there is very low maternal mortality in the developed world, not least because of the professionalization of midwifery in those countries. However, approximately 35,000 women continue to suffer severe complications of childbirth daily, with about 900 deaths every day, most in the developing countries of Africa and Asia (The State of the World’s Midwifery 2011)...