Pregnancy – C4D Network

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.

Evidence suggests that simply increasing knowledge and awareness of good nutrition practices rarely leads to sustained behavior change, nor is sustained change in nutrition behavior likely to be achieved through a single activity. Several specific behaviors or practices impact nutritional status during the critical first 1,000 days (pregnancy to age two), while complex, contextual determinants also influence individual decisions to consider, test, adopt and sustain a given behavior or practice. The field of Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) is a collection of approaches and tools informed by behavioral theories and used to design public health interventions.

This review, part of a broader effort by SPRING to support governments and other stakeholders in their delivery of high impact nutrition practices, provides a summary of peer-reviewed evidence regarding the effectiveness of SBCC approaches to increase the uptake of three key nutrition behaviors: women’s dietary practices during pregnancy and lactation, breastfeeding practices, and complementary feeding practices. SBCC interventions have been broadly categorized into three areas: interpersonal communication; use of media; and community/social mobilization. This review also identifies gaps in the evidence and recommendations for further areas of study.

This review includes a total of 91 studies identified using the Ovid MEDLINE database. Recognizing the potential value of a broad array of study designs, results from five study types are included: reviews (including meta-analysis), randomized controlled trials, longitudinal studies, repeated cross-sectional studies, and cross-sectional studies. Excluded studies include those with data from high income countries, those published prior to 2000, those written in a language other than English, and those that focused exclusively on refinement of a research methodology. Other exclusions are noted in the text.

Click here for full review.

Site Navigation

Social Networks