Safe Motherhood: A Review - Family Care International

Development and Donor Agency Commitment
The trend toward integrating safe
motherhood with other development issues
stems from addressing the entire continuum
of women’s health issues. In addition, several
representatives noted that safe motherhood
is gaining greater prominence with other
relevant development issues:
““
The role
of safe motherhood is evolving
within HIV/AIDS; for example, looking at
the safety of contraception and prevention
of unwanted pregnancy for HIV-positive
women is increasingly being encompassed
in HIV/AIDS work. So aspects of safe
motherhood are expanding to cover new
areas.
Representatives were asked to reflect on
shifts in programmatic and technical areas
within their agencies over the past ten years.
Commonly recurring themes include
the following:
• A shift from primarily emphasizing facilitylevel
work to building capacity at the
community level.
• Focusing on the entire health system,
which involves strengthening capacity at
all levels of the health care infrastructure,
from primary to referral levels, and
engaging community members in service
provision. Specific programmatic areas
of focus include: improving referral and
transfer to higher-level facilities; improving
communication systems; strengthening
skills in emergency obstetric care at
all levels.
• Increased advocacy for all sexual and
reproductive health issues, including
increasing women’s access to safe abortion
services (where not against the law) and the
health consequences of unsafe abortion. One
respondent noted that advocacy efforts need
to be supported by clear, evidence-based
interventions with demonstrated impact.
• Increasing emphasis on the “rights
framework” which situates safe
motherhood as an essential human right,
and includes the right to receive basic
health care services.
• Emphasizing skilled assistance at childbirth
and emergency treatment for complications.
Representatives noted that there has been
growing consensus that skilled care at the
time of childbirth, along with emergency
obstetric care to handle complicated
cases, is a critical intervention for reducing
maternal mortality.
These changes in programmatic and technical
emphasis were attributed to two broad areas:
• The impact of international conferences and
discussions, global partnerships, and global
advocacy initiatives for maternal health:
““
International dialogue tells
us what
is important. We are constantly informed
by what is happening internationally. For
example, recently WHO has emphasized
safe motherhood and newborn care to
be looked at collectively, and this has
influenced our thinking.
• Lessons learned from the field:
are influenced by
programming in
the field. The lessons learned are adapted
into our programs.
“ “ We
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