OBJECTIVES In recent years, the government of the Philippines embarked upon an ambitious Universal Health Care program, underpinned by the rapid scale-up of subsidized insurance coverage for poor and vulnerable populations. With a view of reducing the stubbornly high maternal mortality rates in the country, the program has a strong focus on maternal health services and is supported by a nationa...

Recognizing the need for evidence to inform US Government and governments of the low- and middle-income countries on efficient, effective maternal health policies, strategies, and programmes, the US Government convened the Evidence Summit on Enhancing Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services through Financial Incentives in April 2012 in Washington, DC, USA. This paper summarizes the backgr...

BACKGROUND Maternal mortality continues to be a heavy burden in low and middle income countries where half of all deliveries take place in homes without skilled attendance. The study aimed to investigate the underlying and proximate determinants of health facility childbirth in rural and urban areas of three districts in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. METHODS A population-based survey was conduc...

BACKGROUND Kenya has a high maternal mortality rate. Provision of skilled delivery plays a major role in reducing maternal mortality. Cost is a hindrance to the utilization of skilled delivery. The Government of Kenya introduced a policy of free delivery services in government facilities beginning June 2013. We sought to determine the impact of this intervention on facility based deliveries in ...

CONTEXT Although the reduction of maternal mortality levels is a key Millennium Development Goal, community-based evidence on obstetric complications and maternal care-seeking behavior remains limited in low-resource countries. METHODS This study presents an overview of key findings from the 2001 Bangladesh Maternal Health Services and Maternal Mortality Survey of ever-married women aged 13-4...

In Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, policy focused on improving access to maternity services has led to measures to reduce cost barriers impeding women's access to care. Specifically, these include cash transfer or voucher schemes designed to stimulate demand for services, including antenatal, delivery and post-partum care. In spite of their popularity, however, little is known about the ...

BACKGROUND Antenatal Care (ANC), use of skilled delivery attendants and postnatal care (PNC) services are key maternal health services that can significantly reduce maternal mortality. Understanding the factors that affect service utilization helps to design appropriate strategies and policies towards improvement of service utilization and thereby reduce maternal mortality. The objective of thi...

objective: to understand the knowledge and services of informal providers and to explore their role in addressing the human resource gap in uttar pradesh, india, within the context of maternal health. materials and methods: the study is exploratory in nature, conducted in four blocks of four districts of uttar pradesh state, india. semi-structured interviews were conducted with 114 informal pro...

Each year thousands of adolescent girls and young women in South Africa (SA) become pregnant and many die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. Although women of all ages are susceptible, girls<15 years of age are five times as likely, and those aged 15-19 years twice as likely, to die from complications related to childbirth than women in their 20s. In SA, non-pregnancy-relat...

BACKGROUND The International Conference on Population Development held in Cairo in 1994 identified the importance of male involvement in reproductive health programs. Since then, there has been an increase in reproductive health initiatives that target both men and women in an attempt to fulfill the 5th Millenium Development Goal. Yet, while the benefits of male involvement have been acknowledg...