Chapter 9
Maternal health
Maternal health refers to the health of an individual during pregnancy, delivery, and the post-partum period (also known as the puerperium, lasting approximately 6 weeks or 42 days after birth). While the events of this span of time are often positive and fulfilling experiences, for too many this period is associated with suffering, ill health, and even death.
A positive pregnancy experience requires maternity care to be responsive to an individual’s values, beliefs, and needs. A systematic review by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that what matters to women in relation to childbirth is underpinned by three phenomena: the physical and psychosocial nature of birth as an embodied experience; local familial and sociocultural norms that legitimate or reframe expectations about labour and birth; and how maternity care provision enables or restricts what matters to them. There is evidence from a wide range of sources to suggest that it is imperative that maternity care recognizes the benefits of providing what matters to all pregnant individuals (and the risks of not doing so). These factors should become a central component of care provision to ensure the optimum uptake of effective and respectful maternity care and, as a consequence, the health of women of reproductive age and their infants and families, in both the short and longer term.
This chapter addresses some of the key interventions for maternal and newborn health that are essential to saving the lives of women and their infants and improving their health and well-being, including early detection of risk factors and timely provision of relevant preventive interventions and treatment during pregnancy, labour, and delivery, and the immediate and extended post-partum/post-natal period. This chapter aims to provide guidance for lower-level clinics and facilities who have referral networks that would include more specialized obstetric care for individuals at high risk or with complications.
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