Strengthening Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring during Labor with a Standard Handheld Doppler - Implementation Experience from India.

Background: India's neonatal and perinatal mortality is among the highest in the world. Intrapartum-related conditions contribute to a significant proportion of neonatal deaths and stillbirths. Fetal heart rate monitoring, a recommended norm to assess fetal well-bring, is not practiced as per standard guidelines in public health facilities.

Safe Delivery application with facilitation increases knowledge and confidence of obstetric and neonatal care among frontline health workers in India.

Background: Digital learning tools have proliferated among healthcare workers in India. Evidence of their effectiveness is however minimal. We sought to examine the impact of the Safe Delivery App (SDA) on knowledge and confidence among frontline health workers (HW) in India.

A Novel Approach to Promote Evidence-Based Development of District Maternal and Newborn Health Plans in Two States in India.

Background: Maternal and child health implementation plan development in districts of India lacks systematic process and capacity resulting in suboptimal health improvements. There is ineffective and limited participation and lack of autonomy to effect changes in district priorities.

Objectives: Primary objective was to demonstrate a systematic planning approach to develop evidence-based district implementation plans for mothers and children.

Experiences From an Implementation Model of ARI Diagnostic Device in Pneumonia Case Management Among Under-5 Children in Peripheral Healthcare Centers in India.

Objectives: To address pneumonia, a major killer of under-5 children in India, a multimodal pulse oximeter was implemented in Health and Wellness Centers. Given the evidence of pulse oximetry in effective pneumonia management and taking into account the inadequate skills of front-line healthcare workers in case management, the device was introduced to help them readily diagnose and treat a child and to examine usability of the device.

Design: The implementation was integrated with the routine OPD of primary health centers for 15 months after healthcare workers were provided with an abridged IMNCI training.

Care Around Birth Approach: A Training, Mentoring, and Quality Improvement Model to Optimize Intrapartum and Immediate Postpartum Quality of Care in India.

Background: With the highest risk of maternal and newborn mortality occurring during the period around birth, quality of care during the intrapartum and immediate postpartum periods is critical for maternal and neonatal survival.

Methods: The United States Agency for International Development's Scaling Up Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health Interventions project, also known as the Vriddhi project, collaborated with the national and 6 state governments to design and implement the Care Around Birth approach in 141 high caseload facilities across 26 high-priority districts of India from January 2016 to December 2017. The approach aimed to synergize evidence-based technical interventions with quality improvement (QI) processes, respectful maternity care, and health system strengthening efforts.

Putting the local back into planning-experiences and perceptions of state and district health functionaries of seven aspirational districts in India on an innovative planning capacity building approach.

District functionaries have ostensibly a major responsibility to develop evidence based plans. However, this responsibility is not commensurate with skills and expertise among functionaries in many Indian states. Vriddhi project-technical partner of the government, developed a planning tool for maternal and neonatal health programmes, called RMNCH + A Action Agenda using Strategic Approach (RAASTA), which was introduced in a workshop format in two states and attended by program officers.

Strengthening the Use of Partograph in High Caseload Public Health Facilities in India through an Integrated Quality Improvement Approach.

Background: The effective implementation of evidence-based practices including the use of partograph to improve maternal and newborn outcomes is critical on account of increased institutional delivery. However, despite clear guidelines, partograph use in India is not widely practiced.

Materials And Methods: Quality improvement (QI) efforts along with training and mentoring were operationalized in a total of 141 facilities across 26 high priority districts of India.

Improving Adolescent Health Services across High Priority Districts in 6 States of India: Learnings from an Integrated Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child and Adolescent Health Project.

Background: India has been at the forefront of designing adolescent health (AH) policies. The National Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health policy (2006), the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn Child, and AH strategy (2013), and the "Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK)" (2014) have been the critical milestones in this direction. However, despite policies being available, the AH outcomes need improvement through operationalization of focused and need-based AH interventions.

Ligand migration and hexacoordination in type 1 non-symbiotic rice hemoglobin.

Type 1 non-symbiotic rice hemoglobin (rHb1) shows bis-histidyl heme hexacoordination and is capable of binding diatomic ligands reversibly. The biological function is as yet unclear, but the high oxygen affinity makes it unlikely to be involved in oxygen transport. In order to gain insight into possible physiological roles, we have studied CO rebinding kinetics after laser flash photolysis of rHb1 in solution and encapsulated in silica gel.