Evolving narratives on signal functions for monitoring maternal and newborn health services: A meta-narrative inspired review.

Emergency obstetric care (EmOC) signal functions are a shortlist of key clinical interventions capable of averting deaths from the five main direct causes of maternal mortality; they have been used since 1997 as a part of an EmOC monitoring framework to track the availability of EmOC services in low- and middle-income settings. Their widespread use and proposed adaptation to include other types of care, such as care for newborns, is testimony to their legacy as part of the measurement architecture within reproductive health. Yet, much has changed in the landscape of maternal and newborn health (MNH) since the initial introduction of EmOC signal functions.

Building capacities of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs) through a complementary mix of directed and self-directed skill-based learning-A case study in Pune District, Western India.

Unlabelled: Auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) play a pivotal role in provision of maternal and newborn health at primary level in India. Effective in-service training is crucial for upgrading their knowledge and skills for providing appropriate healthcare services. This paper aims at assessing the effectiveness of a complementary mix of directed and self-directed learning approaches for building essential maternal and newborn health-related skills of ANMs in rural Pune District, India.

An investigation of maternal deaths following public protests in a tribal district of Madhya Pradesh, central India.

Since 2005, the Government of India has initiated several interventions to address the issue of maternal mortality, including efforts to improve maternity services and train community health workers, and to give cash incentives to poor women if they deliver in a health facility. Following local protests against a high number of maternal deaths in 2010 in Barwani district in Madhya Pradesh, central India, we undertook a fact-finding visit in January 2011 to investigate the 27 maternal deaths reported in the district from April to November 2010. We found an absence of antenatal care despite high levels of anaemia, absence of skilled birth attendants, failure to carry out emergency obstetric care in obvious cases of need, and referrals that never resulted in treatment.