The fifth Millennium Development Goal of improving maternal health was placed on the international agenda and endorsed by global leaders at the Millennium Summit held in 2000. The aim of this baseline study was to conduct a situational analysis of key maternal health issues in two rural Eastern Cape villages in South Africa: Glenmore and Ndwayana. Ten focus group discussions were conducted with village leaders, community health workers and three different women self-help groups from Glenmore and Ndwayana, with five to eight voluntary participants in each focus group discussion. One of the themes highlighted was inadequate service delivery of ambulance services, which frequently failed to timeously reach expectant mothers in urgent need of transportation to a referral hospital. Adolescent pregnancy was highlighted as the maternal health issue of most concern to the community participants. In this context, a consensus was reached to design and implement an educational intervention to address adolescent pregnancy, which will form the focus of the next phase of this project.
Breastfeeding practices are no longer a norm nowadays. Exclusive breastfeeding is an even bigger challenge, and although it is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that mothers should exclusively breastfeed for the first six months of a baby's life, not many mothers actually practice it. Health promotion activities to promote exclusive breastfeeding are necessary to improve the practices within communities. There is a need to be culturally sensitive when addressing communities as there are already values and beliefs in place that can either promote or hinder the process of health promotion. Community participation is also an important aspect to incorporate during implementation of breastfeeding-promotion activities, because it encourages active participation and is more likely to be accepted than an approach where the community is given information in a directive manner.
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