Addressing social and gender norms to improve uptake of maternal health services in Mali: a descriptive study of CARE’s Project Hope for Mothers and Newborns (PEMN)

Abstract

This study examines the design and implementation of a maternal mortality prevention intervention in central Mali. It uses Project Hope for Mothers and Newborns (PEMN) as a case study to examine the context around implementation, with special emphasis on the role of social, gender and power norms in meeting programme objectives. Interventions to strengthen the health system and workforce were coupled with a social norms change approach to catalyse the personal transformation of staff, community-level health workers and communities via critical reflection and dialogue on gender and social power norms related to maternal health. Processes of reflection among staff, health workers and the community, coupled with activities that challenged restrictive norms, provided a platform for critical thinking, communication and motivation for change. Rigorous and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation is needed to identify and understand unique pathways to transformative change.

Effects of unintended pregnancy on maternal healthcare services utilization in low- and lower-middle-income countries: systematic review and meta-analysis

“…This is particularly important for LLMC where healthcare services utilization is still very low, and influenced by many factors. Some of these are dysfunctional and underperforming healthcare systems (Abosse et al 2010), community norms (Kuzara et al 2018), roads and transportation (Tegegne et al 2018), and key socio-demographic factors such as lower-socio-economic condition, lack of education, and not being engaged in employment (Gupta et al 2014;WHO 2015). Given the higher prevalence of unintended pregnancy in LLMC, in this study we found that ensuring maternal healthcare services utilization among women experiencing an unintended pregnancy is another important challenge.…”