Maternity Care, Maternity Guidelines, and the BANC Checklist

Abstract

The area of care of the BACIS program is maternal health. This is one of the priority areas in the health system in South Africa. It is an area that also has targets that have been set under the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. The first section of the chapter, after the introduction, presents data on this issue of maternal healthcare. Data is important because it allows us to understand the extent of the problem as well as to set targets. From the data we also get to understand the various contributors and factors to this issue, factors including administration-related factors, patient-related factors, and health provider-related factors. After the data follows the discussion of the guidelines themselves. The chapter is also partitioned between content on maternal mortality and content on perinatal mortality, which are important quality measures in maternal and neonatal care.