Contributor Posts

How do we talk about mental illness in pregnancy? Well, we don’t. Not that we don’t know about it at all; pregnancy-related mental illness, for the most part, is well-recognised culturally. But it’s not what mothers talk about while they work and watch…

Until recently, the health system in Ghana had been quite silent on maternal depression, which had a number of consequences on maternal and newborn outcomes. To address this need, The National Catholic Health Service, with funds from Grand Challenge…

Across most settings, and particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), antenatal care (ANC) is a critically missed opportunity to identify and support women with common mental health problems. ANC attendance in many LMICs is high and…

Medical systems have historically devalued women’s experience with illness, often resulting in diagnoses and treatments that are not appropriate or relevant for women’s lives. Postpartum depression is no exception. One way to design more responsive…

Having worked as neonatal nurses and educators for more than three decades collectively, we know that newborns who are born prematurely or sick are linked to either maternal perinatal health or the intrapartum experience. According to WHO, 45% of all…

Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) programmes frequently depend upon the capacity of the primary caregiver, more often than not, the mother, to provide optimal care for her young child. Increasingly, early childhood strategies recognize the…

Seven grantees, 13 states, three levels of government and one mission: to increase accountability for maternal health in Nigeria, which has one of the world’s highest maternal mortality ratios. This presented a complex, multi-faceted context for…

As a key strategy, Strategies toward Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) emphasizes increasing women’s access to maternal health products around the world. To support this, we must better understand the dynamics of the health care markets in…

If we all agree that maternal mortality represents a human rights violation, why do lawyers, providers, NGOs, and individuals hesitate to use the legal system in the wake of a maternal death or morbidity? The legal system is used to protect rights and…

High rates of maternal mortality in many parts of northern India persist owing to an inadequately equipped public health system compounded by disrespectful and negligent treatment of poor women. The Government of India has instituted several measures to…