Maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) is an approach promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality. MPDSR involves stakeholders in the processes of identifying and reporting maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths, understanding why the deaths occurred, taking actions to prevent similar deaths occurring in the future, monitoring implementation of actions and resulting changes, and promoting accountability for maternal and perinatal deaths.
The aim of this report is to describe progress on strengthening MPDSR over the last 10 years, as a follow up to the WHO and UNFPA Time to respond: a report on the global implementation of maternal death surveillance and response, published in 2016. The report describes improvements in policies, implementation and tracking of MPDSR implementation, and highlights how MPDSR can be successful in various contexts, such as humanitarian and fragile settings. Eight country case studies highlight examples of addressing barriers to MPDSR implementation by using the MPDSR approach to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality and increase accountability for maternal and perinatal deaths. Finally, the report outlines progress on MPDSR implementation since 2016, improvements in barriers to implementation, and highlights focus areas to further strengthen to 2030.
This report takes a systematic approach investigating in-depth the practice of using MPDSR in eight countries around the world with more than 160 semi-structured interviews. Through case studies from countries at different levels of progress in MPDSR implementation, it also reports on gaps and challenges in MPDSR implementation and shares experiences from countries on how these have been addressed. It is expected that this report will encourage the global health community of policy-makers, programme managers, health workers, civil society organizations (CSOs), professional societies, academic institutions, bilateral and multilateral agencies and foundations working in maternal, perinatal and newborn health to continue to strengthen MPDSR implementation and mobilize efforts and funding to overcome gaps and challenges that adversely affect maternal and perinatal survival.