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 advocacy coalitions play an increasingly prominent role within the global health landscape, linking actors and institutions to attract political attention and resources. this paper examines how coalitions negotiate among themselves and exercise hidden forms of power to produce policy on the basis of their beliefs and strategic interests.   methods this paper examines the beliefs...

Background and objective Peru's Ministry of Health has made efforts to increase the cultural inclusiveness of maternal health services. In 2005, the Ministry adopted an intercultural birthing policy (IBP) that authorizes and encourages the use of culturally acceptable birthing practices in government-run health facilities. However, studies suggest that indigenous women may receive inconsistent ...

BACKGROUND Progress towards attaining the maternal mortality and maternal health targets set by Millennium Development Goal 5 has been slow in most African countries. Assessing antenatal care and institutional delivery service utilization and their determinants is an important step towards improving maternal health care services. METHODS Data were drawn from the longitudinal database of Kilit...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to assess the main factors related to maternal mortality reduction in large time series available in Chile in context of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). METHODS Time series of maternal mortality ratio (MMR) from official data (National Institute of Statistics, 1957-2007) along with parallel time series of education years, income pe...

BACKGROUND A measure of the proportion of deliveries assisted by skilled attendants is one of the indicators of progress towards achieving Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, which aims at improving maternal health. This study aimed at establishing delivery practices and associated factors among mothers seeking child welfare services at selected health facilities in Nyandarua South district, K...

BACKGROUND We aimed to assess the feasibility of using community-based informants' networks to identify maternal deaths that were followed up through verbal autopsies (MADE-IN MADE-FOR technique) to estimate maternal mortality in a rural district in Pakistan. METHODS We used 4 community networks to identify deaths in women of reproductive age in the past 2 years in Chakwal district, Pakistan....

Despite promotion by many stakeholders to improve maternal health outcome in many developing countries including Malawi, many analysts agree that the utmost success in maternal health will arise if maternal health care services are an unparallel led source for women's health care solutions for any problem related to childbirth. Health advocates worldwide claim that even though maternal services...

BACKGROUND Improving maternal and reproductive health still remains a major challenge in most low-income countries especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The growing inequality in access to maternal health interventions is an issue of great concern. In Ghana, inadequate attention has been given to the inequality gap that exists amongst women when accessing antenatal care during pregnancy and skilled...

BACKGROUND The progress in coverage of maternal health services in Ethiopia has been rather slow over the past decade and consequently the maternal mortality ratio was very high (673 per 100,000 live births) among the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and remained constant during 2005-11 period. Earlier studies have mostly focused on determinants of maternal health seeking behavior in Ethiopia. H...