POWERING A MOVEMENT FOR MATERNAL NEWBORN HEALTH

Kangaroo mother care (KMC) and a well-trained nurse saved the life of Blessing Angel, a premature infant born in Homa Bay County, Kenya. KMC is a simple, low-cost intervention—skin-to-skin contact and exclusive breastfeeding—that shows how early, quality care can transform outcomes for vulnerable newborns and their families.

This month, our research summaries cover pregnant women and malaria surveillance in the DRC, an AI-assisted diagnostic for newborns, an evaluation of the Safer Births Bundle of Care program in Tanzania, and more.

Women continue to get pregnant and give birth in times of crisis, times when access to high-quality maternal and newborn health services is especially critical. In these contexts, maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) remains an important tool to uncover root causes of deaths and offer insights to inform life-saving interventions.