Contributor Posts

Nepal has experienced a substantial reduction in maternal mortality in recent years. Credit has been given to community health workers known as Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) for this achievement. However, Nepal still has a high rate of…

In Kenya, where I work as an advocate for women’s health and rights, women continue to die during pregnancy and childbirth at alarming rates. Approximately 25% of these deaths are due to heavy bleeding following childbirth, also known as postpartum…

In Chitral district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province, Pakistan, a high rate of home births translates to inadequate or nonexistent treatment for life-threatening obstetric complications, like postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). Customarily, home births are…

As far as maternal health supplies go, it is easy for groups to forget the role of the three key life-saving commodities and therefore fail to prioritize their presence in health facilities 100% of the time. Arguably, services — with their immediate…

When I first entered this line of work, I often heard one thing: the maternal health market is way too small to be sustainable, much less lucrative. Naturally, one can only expect market failure for maternal health drugs and, by extension, a chronic…

Oxytocin is the first-line drug for the prevention and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) and is widely available in developing countries. There is a large market for oxytocin and there are many manufacturers of the drug; however there are growing…

Nearly three years ago, I blogged about a systems approach to improving access for a Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) series on maternal health commodities. It was an exciting year for maternal health. The UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for…

The past ten years have witnessed impressive gains in the availability and use of reproductive health supplies like condoms and oral contraceptives that allow men and women to safely and effectively prevent or space pregnancies. As a result of concerted…

By: Katharine McCarthy, Research Coordinator, Population Council; Saumya Ramarao, Senior Associate, Population Council This post is part of the blog series “Increasing access to maternal and reproductive health supplies: Leveraging lessons learned…

In 2014 it was estimated that only 15% of Ethiopian women deliver in a health facility. In order to engage the community in improving the quality of healthcare, participatory community quality improvement (PCQI) was implemented. As facility delivery was…