Strengths of community and health facilities based interventions in improving women and adolescents’ care seeking behaviors as approaches for reducing maternal mortality and improving birth outcome among low income communities of Egypt

Abstract

Background Provision of emergency obstetric care is considered the key for maternal mortality reduction worldwide. This study evaluated the impact of community- and facility-based educational programs on provision of emergency obstetric care in Egypt. The study focused on evaluating utilization of the available health services and care seeking behaviors of mothers in the childbearing period. Methods We implemented a package of community- and facility-focused educational interventions in two of Egypt’s lowest income governorates. At facility level, health professionals at rural health units from 21 villages over 5 years were trained. Mass media gathering, individual teaching at health facilities, printed materials and home-based care sessions were provided. Collectively, these interventions were designed to focusing on recognition of the early warning signs during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum period for timely referral to hospitals for 20,494 women and adolescents mothers. Results The impact of the interventions was highly reflected on the percent of mothers received care during their pregnancy period. Proper antenatal care at governmental or private health facilities was raised dramatically from 0.6 to 59.3% and those who utilized at least one family planning method from 61.4 to 74.4%. Accordingly, the rate of complications significantly reduced during pregnancy (38.1 to 15.1%), during delivery (24.1 to 13.1%) and during postpartum (81.7 to 7.0%). As an impact to the improvement, there was a marked reduction in adolescent pregnancy by 55% and better birth outcome with a reduction in the percent of stillbirth by 11.5%. Conclusion It is important to provide a comprehensive package that works at both improving qualities of care as well as empowering women by knowledge to first aid measures at the community level. The cost-effective way to empower mothers to provide first aid measures as emergency obstetric care is to adopt the outreach approach which could be more influential than mass media campaigns for the at-risk and vulnerable and low-income communities.

Accelerating Hepatitis C virus elimination in Egypt by 2030: A national survey of communication for behavioral development as a modelling study

“…They were very successful in creating behavior changes aiming at counteracting wrong believes not only for HCV related behaviors [ 14 ] but providing support for many other health problems. Successful models of Egyptian studies range from hygiene promotion [ 40 – 42 ], promoting school and breastfeeding [ 43 , 44 ] promoting safe motherhood and reducing maternal mortality [ 45 , 46 ], supporting child psychosocial development [ 47 , 48 ] alleviating health problems like diabetes [ 49 ], HBV and vaccination [ 50 , 51 ], and supporting end-stage renal disease Egyptian patients [ 52 ]. Such approach was also successful for sensitive issues like accepting organ donation and resulted in shifting the attitude of almost half of the participants who were refusing posthumous organ donation to become an acceptable issue [ 53 ].…”

INVESTMENT CASE & EQUITY: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF MATERNAL & CHILD HEALTHCARE SERVICES IN PUNJAB

“…In contrast with the individual involvement programs, a systematic review of mother's health programs in resourcelimited countries found a substantial effect on maternal health. A research group in India has demonstrated essential changes in health and health care (Metwally et al, 2020). Also, in 259 tests and reports, which include systemic and descriptive Analysis, randomized controlled trials, classified, controlled, and regulated pre-post and uncontrolled timeseries studies, cross-sectional tests, and expert opinion documents, a systematic analysis that analyses 208 novel methods to MNH has completed creative technologies with inventive implants.…”

Stunting and its Determinants among Governmental Primary School Children in Egypt: A School-based Cross-sectional Study

“…The fact that higher levels of education for women in developing countries translate into better nutrition for offspring may be due to that more schooling leads to greater exposure to nutrition principles. It was also hypothesized that more educated women in developing countries are more receptive or have a higher ability to understand information about child care and nutrition [8], [42], [43], [44] and are more able to maximize utilization of existing family and community resources for available governmental primary health care services [45], [46]. Moreover, the linkage between exclusive breastfeeding with higher levels of maternal education was documented among studies targeted infants and preschool children from developing countries [8], [9], [10], [11], [43].…”