Innovations for Hearing Women’s Voices to Improve Maternal and Newborn Health

The Parent Voices Initiative: The First Global Registry of Stillbirth Parent Support

To date, there has been no comprehensive cataloguing of organizations that support parents after a stillbirth, nor any review of the challenges those organizations face. The International Stillbirth Alliance (ISA) aimed to (1) identify both organisations and, in countries with few or no such organizations, individuals that support parents following a stillbirth ("support providers"), and (2) collate this information into a public global registry. We also investigated key challenges faced by support providers.

Listen to Us! A Women-Led Campaign during the COVID-19 Pandemic 

The COVID-19 pandemic posed a challenge in access to maternal health services, despite inclusion in the list of essential services. The White Ribbon Alliance Rajasthan initiated a campaign, Hamari Awaz Suno, to advocate for quality and respectful maternal health services during April 11–20, 2021.

Improving Quality of Care for Mothers and Babies in Kenya through a Digital SMS-Based Feedback Platform to Amplify Client Voices in Their Health Care Experience 

Access to respectful maternal health care for women is a fundamental right, yet remains a challenge in many contexts. In Kenya, disrespectful attitudes from providers have been described by women as barriers to care seeking. Jacaranda Health's PROMPTS, a two-way SMS-based platform, is a channel for women to provide feedback on the quality of care they receive during maternal health visits. This data is aggregated and shared with facilities and counties so they are able to reflect and act upon it, improving quality maternal health care and amplifying mothers' voices as they interact with Kenya's health care system.

Women's Lived Experience during COVID-19 in India 

Systematic advocacy, based on women's lived experiences, was needed to highlight how they were being affected by COVID-19 and the required measures to address the short-term and long-term implications of stigma and discrimination, violence against women, and the socio-economic impact on vulnerable populations, among other issues. To understand and act upon the ground-level realities of women of the reproductive age group (18 to 49 years), the Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3) conducted a survey across five Indian states of Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal in June 2020.