Recently published guidance from the World Health Organization on health promotion interventions for maternal and newborn health recommends a series of interrelated interventions to improve access and use of skilled care during pregnancy, childbirth and after birth. The recommendations are based on systematic reviews of available evidence on the effect of the interventions on care seeking outcomes. This thematic series concerns the implementation of these largely low-risk and potentially-valuable interventions. Experts who participated in the WHO consultation highlighted that while information on the effectiveness of the interventions is important, policy makers also needed to understand the important contextual and implementation considerations which affect effectiveness. Each paper in this series will tackle one intervention and provide an analysis of the different factors affecting implementation. Papers summarise stakeholder perspectives and experiences of the interventions, barriers and facilitators to implementation, and report on how implementation factors relate to improvements in care seeking. These summaries of implementation factors provide valuable information that can be used by policy makers and programme managers in considering adaptation of health promotion interventions for maternal and newborn health.
We invite you to read the papers in the collection, below, beginning with with our introductory editorial.
Guest Editors: Ms Anayda Portela, Dr Helen Smith