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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Sereen Thaddeus, MA, MPH and Nancy Russell, MA. Maternal and Neonatal Health Program, 1615 Thames Street, Suite 100, Baltimore, MD 21231-3492, 410-614-6633, sthaddeus@jhpiego.org
Pregnancy and childbirth are private events for a woman and her family. However, they are also times in which every woman is at risk of developing a life-threatening complication. Though such complications are treatable, too often women in developing countries do not receive necessary medical attention in time, and they die needlessly.
Delays in seeking, reaching and receiving skilled care are critical contributors to maternal deaths. Factors that shape these delays are mostly known and common across many settings. It is possible to anticipate and prepare for them. However, controlling delay-causing factors is often beyond the ability of a woman and her family, and requires focused and public efforts at the community, facility, and policy levels.
The Maternal and Neonatal Health (MNH) Program developed the concept of birth preparedness and complication readiness (BP/CR) to ensure that medical and non-medical factors, and all necessary actors, would be accounted for when developing and implementing safe motherhood programs. BP/CR is based on the belief that through advanced preparation and rapid action by all responsible parties, delay-causing factors can be averted and delays in seeking, reaching, and receiving care reduced.
The aim of the MNH Program’s Behavior Change Interventions (BCI) component is to advance BP/CR by facilitating behavioral and normative change and promoting linkages between and among key actors. Behavior change interventions from Guatemala, Burkina Faso, and Indonesia will be presented, and results of advanced BP/CR discussed.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Safe Mother Program, Behavior Modification
Related Web page: www.jhpiego.mnh.org
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.