"We all thought her pregnancy was safe," says the husband of 23-year-old Yeshimbet. "She looked fine." But after Yeshimbet gave birth to their son in their home, the bleeding wouldn't stop. She died the next day on the way to the health centre, many hours away on foot.

Louise Guenette/IDRC

As the seven-year Innovating for Maternal and Child Health in Africa (IMCHA) program reached its halfway mark, 80 African and Canadian experts gathered in Dakar, Senegal, from April 24-27, 2017 to discuss the program's emerging findings and to hone their research and policy engagement skills.

This study carried out by Lúrio University (UniLúrio) Health Sciences Faculty (HSF) in partnership with Nampula Provincial Health Directorate (NPHD), Marrere Hospital (MH) and the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada constitutes part of the baseline evaluation for an implementation research on maternal and newborn health

It is women and children across developing countries who suffer most from the shocks and stresses to health systems. In South Sudan — a country ravaged by conflicts — limited infrastructure, lack of health information, and severe shortages of health personnel contribute to high levels of maternal and child mortality. Outbreaks of infectious disease and epidemics have similar consequences — the impact of Ebola on maternal and child health in West Africa is one example.

By Professor Ellen Chirwa

In 2017 a team from Kamuzu College of Nursing, University of Alberta, and AMREF Health Africa implemented research to assess the quality of maternity care services that mothers received at Nkhotakota District Hospital, Ntchisi District Hospital, and Matawale Health Centre in Malawi. We collected information by observing and interviewing health care personnel.

Innovative interventions to improve maternal and child health in Nigeria were the focus of a workshop in Abuja on September 21, 2016. Nigeria has the second highest absolute number of maternal deaths and perinatal deaths in the world, contributing to approximately 15% of all maternal deaths worldwide. 

The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Canada's Minister of International Development and La Francophonie, announced major funding for an IDRC grantee during her August visit to West Africa. In Senegal, Minister Bibeau met with officials from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences – Next Einstein Initiative (AIMS-NEI), a pan-African network of training centres enabling African students to become innovators driving scientific, educational, and economic self-sufficiency on the continent. 

Having successfully delivered her baby at a public health facility in Mityana, a city just west of Uganda's capital, Kampala, in 2009, Sylvia Nalubowa was surprised to learn that her labour wasn't over — she was having twins. But there was a problem. Try as Nalubowa might, her second child was stubbornly resisting entry into the world