Maternal Health – C4D Network

Social and Behavior Change (SBCC) in Post-Ebola Guinea (HC3 Case Study Series 2017)

April 29, 2017

The Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) has published a series of case studies examining activities and tools used in the social and behavior change communication (SBCC) strategy to improve healthy behaviors and increase demand for and use of quality reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) services in Guinea as the country continues to recover from Ebola.

Each case study highlights how HC3 is working with Guinea’s hardest hit communities to rebuild both trust in the health system and the quality of care delivered.

Click here for case studies.

Addressing AMA and HP Pregnancies – A Healthy Timing and Spacing of Pregnancy (HTSP) Implementation Kit (HC3 2016)

May 14, 2016

Healthy Timing and Spacing of Pregnancy (HTSP) is an under-utilized approach to family planning (FP) and maternal and child health (MCH) education, counseling and services to help families have planned pregnancies at the healthiest times of their lives for the best outcomes for mother and child. Although many FP and MCH programs promote birth spacing, HTSP elevates the role of spacing between pregnancies, rather than births, and stresses the impact on maternal, neonatal and child health.

HTSP activities and research to date have focused on the first two approaches in this list: delaying pregnancies until after age 18 and spacing pregnancies at least 24 months after the preceding birth. However, a recent HC3 desk review revealed that little to no work has focused on social and behavior change communication (SBCC) around the last two themes: pregnancies in women aged 35 and older (of advanced maternal age, or AMA) and women having five or more (high-parity, or HP) births.

HC3 conducted qualitative research around the drivers and determinants of AMA and HP pregnancies in Togo and Niger, and pretested approaches to address them using SBCC. HC3 then developed this implementation kit (I-Kit) to help program managers emphasize and include AMA and HP pregnancy risk information in their existing FP and MCH programs.

The HTSP I-Kit is designed to help program managers address the risks of pregnancies among women aged 35 and older (of advanced maternal age, or AMA) and women having five or more births (high-parity, or HP) in their family planning or maternal and child health programs.

The I-Kit is divided into two parts:

Sections to help review the local data, apply SBCC approaches to design a strategy, integrate AMA and HP into FP and MCH programs, develop an action plan, adapt SBCC communication materials, and prepare a monitoring and evaluation plan.
Adaptable SBCC communication materials, including: counseling guides for providers/CHWs; a provider poster; client brochures; guides for working with community-based groups, researchers and journalists; and infographics.

Click here for full details and access to kit.

Community theater for improved nutrition. A guide for programme managers and theater groups (USAID 2011)

May 8, 2016

Community theatre can be an effective way to support positive changes in health knowledge and behaviour as well as related social norms. This is a guide for programme managers and community theatre groups on how and why to integrate maternal, infant, and young child nutrition content into existing community theater activities. It provides recommendations for strengthening theater performances based on PATH’s successful experience implementing Magnet Theater for a variety of public health topics throughout Africa and Asia, and the Infant & Young Child Nutrition (IYCN) Project’s experience using theater to promote optimal infant and young child feeding practices in Zambia.

Amakomaya [Mother’s Love]: mHealth project (Nepal, 2011 onwards)

April 21, 2016

Amakomaya, translated as Mother’s Love in Nepali, was initiated by a dedicated team of local ICT experts and health professionals when they received a USD4,000 grant from the Internet Society in 2011. Committed to tackle the challenges that Nepali women face during pregnancy and childbirth; and equipped with the skills to leverage opportunities, including those that the Internet and mobile communications offer, the team is making a series of breakthroughs, particularly in women’s health education, changing community practices that marginalize women, and the digitization
of health records.

The full details of the case study can be found in the following pdf: CaseStudy-Amakomaya_Nepal

(Source: Christine Apikul)