Maternal & Child Health

Teaching Mothers to Provide Home Treatment of Malaria in Tigray, Ethiopia: A Randomised Trial

No satisfactory strategy for reducing high child mortality from malaria has yet been established in tropical Africa. The authors compared the effect on under-5 mortality of teaching mothers to promptly provide antimalarials to their sick children at home, with the present community health worker approach. The study concludes that a major reduction in under-5 mortality can be achieved in holoendemic malaria areas through training local mother coordinators to teach mothers to give under-5 children antimalarial drugs. [adapted from abstract]

Role of Traditional Birth Attendants in Preventing Perinatal Transmission of HIV

Every year a million women infected with HIV deliver babies without professional help. This article suggests that traditional birth attendants could be involved in preventing perinatal transmission of HIV by offering services such as HIV testing and counseling and short courses of antiretroviral drugs. [publisher’s description]

Policy Brief Two: Rehabilitating the Workforce: The Key to Scaling up MNCH (World Health Report 2005: Making Every Mother and Child Count)

This policy brief from the World Health Report 2005 argues that it will not be possible to effectively scale up Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) care without confronting the global health workforce crisis. It highlights how lack of managerial autonomy, gender discrimination and violence in the workplace, dwindling salaries, poor working conditions and some donor interventions have all contributed to a lack of productivity, as well as the rural to urban, public to private and poor to rich country brain drain and migration. The brief argues the need to plan the expansion of the workforce while implementing corrective measures to rehabilitate productivity and morale.