Stillbirth
Implementation Resources and Tools
This page suggests select tools, resources, and packages to support country implementation of key related approaches, such as respectful care, quality of care, and maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response.
Strengthening Respectful Care
MCSP Respectful Maternity Care Operational Guidance
Maternal Child Survival Program, 2020.
The purpose of this operational guidance is to provide country stakeholders (including policy-makers, program managers and civil society members) with a flexible process to guide the design, implementation, and monitoring of efforts to strengthen respectful maternity care and eliminate mistreatment as part of comprehensive MNH programs. Improving the quality of care, including promoting respectful care, is a critical part of strategies to reduce stillbirth.
Improving the Quality of Care
Quality of Care Network
The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (Quality of Care Network) is a broad partnership of committed governments, implementation partners and funding agencies working to ensure that every pregnant woman, newborn and the child receives good quality care with equity and dignity. The goals of the Network are to halve maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths in health facilities by 2022 and to improve patients’ experience of care in participating in health facilities in Network countries. Under the leadership of Ministries of Health of the participating countries, the Quality of Care Network supports the implementation of national strategies for quality of MNCH care. On their website, they have a library of practical resources, including implementation guidance. They also feature regular webinars related to improving the quality of MNCH care, as well as host a QED quality talks podcast.
Improving Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR)
Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR): Materials to support implementation
The World Health Organization (WHO) Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Ageing launched on September 2nd, 2021 the operational guide “Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR): materials to support implementation”. The purpose of this new WHO document is to provide a roadmap for conducting MPDSR in clinical and policy settings.
This operational guide has a broad target audience, which may include: clinicians and all participants in clinical care for women and babies, and the maternal and perinatal death review processes as well as public health officials and public health leadership and other stakeholders in maternal and perinatal death reduction, such as planners and managers, in-service trainers, epidemiologists, demographers, policy-makers and professionals working with vital registration systems.
This document is a practical step by step guidance, relevant to establish a framework to assess the burden of maternal deaths, stillbirths and neonatal deaths, including trends in numbers and causes of death and on how to link maternal and perinatal death reviews. It is important to generate information about modifiable factors contributing to preventable death, and to use the information to guide action in order to prevent similar deaths in the future. The document promotes confidentiality and a “blame free” culture fostering accountability for results and compelling decision-making.