Reducing maternal and perinatal mortality through a community collaborative approach: introduction to a special issue on the Maternal and Newborn Health in Ethiopia Partnership (MaNHEP).

摘要

One of the most intractable public health problems in Africa today is the high mortality rates for pregnant women and their newborns, and Ethiopia is among the countries most affected. The government of Ethiopia has set improvement in these mortality rates as a priority public health goal. Among other policies, the government of Ethiopia has recently established a policy of zero tolerance for home births, which should greatly reduce mortality over the long term. Yet universal facility births attended by skilled providers will not occur for some time in Ethiopia because of resource scarcity. For now, Ethiopian women will continue to give birth at home as they have done traditionally. Facing this problem requires the adoption of interim policies and programs to reduce mortality before the goal of 100% facility births can be realized. This special supplement of the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health presents the results of a highly promising 3-year pilot program that addresses this issue at the community level.