2006 Working Group Highlights

Together with USAID, the Child Survival Technical Support Project plus (CSTS+) and other USAID-funded projects, and PVO headquarters and field staff, the SMRH developed the Minimum Activities for Mothers and Newborns (MAMAN) framework. This framework reflects current thinking in maternal and newborn health and aims to reinforce existing programs and guide new PVO/NGO programming, with a final goal to enable mothers and their newborns to access high-quality MNC services.

Worked closely with the planning team to organize the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Latin America and Caribbean neonatal conference, nominate NGO participants, and review the draft strategy. The meeting took place Feb. 21-23 with 102 participants from 15 countries. CORE Group members held a pre-meeting the night before the workshop began to discuss NGO positioning and how to best mobilize additional NGOs at the country levels to support neonatal health efforts.

Held an Operations Research Workshop with the Population Council for field and HQ staff to develop appropriate operations research proposals to answer implementation questions. Participants drafted a protocol for an operations research study that they plan to implement.

Supported a one-day meeting at USAID to highlight successful community-based approaches to family planning. Ninety-seven participants represented 45 organizations, including a mix of field- and HQ-based participants and presenters. Presenters discussed program experiences from Ethiopia, Guinea, India, Madagascar, Mali, Nepal, and Uganda. Themes included family planning integration to health and non-health programs; linking USAID Mission bilateral activities to PVO/NGO programs; how bilateral programs complement PVO programs; and the application of operations research to field programming.

2005 Working Group Highlights:

• Contributed to the development of a Neonatal Health Strategy for Latin American and the Caribbean led by the Pan American Health Organization and other partners.

• Co-hosted a one-day workshop on community mobilization practices to improve reproductive health and safe motherhood programs, in collaboration with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and the ACCESS Project.

• Developed and disseminated a Maternal and Newborn Standards and Indicators Compendium to assist program managers in selecting essential components, actions and appropriate indicators for chosen interventions in maternal and newborn care.

2004 Working Group Highlights:

Series of Technical Updates

The Working Group held several well-attended technical updates for the maternal and child health community. Topics included: Impact of Birthing Practices on Breastfeeding (with Mary Kroeger); Postpartum Care of the Mother and Newborn (in collaboration with JPHIEGO and Saving Newborn Lives); Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Synergy Project and LINKAGES); USAID Maternal and Neonatal Health Approaches (with USAID staff Mary Ellen Stanton and Lily Kak); a cross-fire debate on the role of traditional birth attendants in hard-to-reach and isolated areas (with American College of Nurse Midwives, Family Health International, and Susheela Englebrecht)); and Contraceptive Needs of HIV-Infected Women: The Role of Intrauterine Devices (with Family Health International).

Integration with HIV/AIDS and Malaria Working Group Activities

The Working Group sent representatives to the Malaria in Pregnancy Taskforce, which met this year in Tanzania and Ghana to discuss intermittent preventive treatment (or therapy) for pregnant women in malaria endemic areas. The Working Group also reviewed many drafts of Saving Mothers, Saving Children: Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS: A Guide for Working in the Community, described in the HIV/AIDS Working Group section.

Integration of Family Planning

In collaboration with Advance Africa, the Working Group hosted a five-day birth spacing workshop in Mozambique for the NGO community and their provincial-level Ministry of Health counterparts. The workshop increased the knowledge and skills of NGOs in integrated birth spacing strategies and enabled them to plan priority activities for incorporation into their ongoing reproductive health programs.

In September, in collaboration with the Institute of Reproductive Health at Georgetown University, the working group hosted a technical update (followed by a one-day workshop) on the Standard Days Method, a natural method of family planning developed through scientific analysis of the fertile time of the woman's menstrual cycle.

In collaboration with Minnesota International Health Volunteers and Adventist Development and Relief Agency International, the Working Group produced a case study examining the integration of family planning activities into child survival programs in Ssembabule District, Uganda, titled Uganda Family Planning Programs: Lessons from the Field.

Maternal and Newborn Standards and Indicators Compendium

The Maternal and Newborn Standards and Indicators Compendium is the result of a three-year collaborative effort between the Working Group and the American College of Nurse Midwives, CSTS, USAID and many other experts. Key standards, indicators, and references are identified for program design and monitoring related to five phases of a woman's reproductive cycle: pre-conception, antenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care and newborn care. Program interventions are categorized by level of care: household, community, first-level care and second (comprehensive) care.