UPCOMING EVENT:- Experts Consultation on Women-Centred Maternal Health Care Dates: 15-16th March 2024 Venue: Hotel Mumbai House, Andheri – Kurla Rd, opposite Courtyard Marriot, J B Nagar, Andheri East, Mumbai -400093, Maharashtra

Concept Note: Building a discourse on Women Centred Maternal Health Care
CommonHealth, a rights-based coalition, advocates for increased access to sexual and reproductive health care. In response to the government’s facility-based midwifery model, CommonHealth aims to build a discourse around women-centred maternal health care. This involves understanding women’s perspectives, especially regarding respectful and dignified healthcare during childbirth.
Background
Maternal health, encompassing pregnancy, childbirth, and postnatal care, has seen global efforts for improvement. Despite progress, challenges persist, particularly in developing countries. India, post-independence, implemented various programs like Janani Suraksha Yojana, aimed at reducing maternal and neonatal mortality. However, studies reveal gaps in achieving maternal health goals, citing issues such as unaffordable transport costs, poor service quality, and human rights violations leading to maternal deaths.
The marginalized populations targeted by maternal health benefit schemes often lack access due to socioeconomic disadvantages. Government strategies, including conditional cash transfers, led to increased institutional births but highlighted suboptimal quality of care. The shortage of trained human resources in health facilities remains a significant factor.
CommonHealth challenges the techno-centric and non-rights-based discourse on women’s health. Advocating for a midwifery-led approach, CommonHealth aims to shift the focus from a facility-based model to women-centered maternal health care. Women’s voices emphasize the need for respectful and dignified healthcare during childbirth, urging a broader set of indicators, including care quality and women’s satisfaction.
To develop a discourse around women-centered maternal health care, CommonHealth conducted grassroots consultations with women and frontline workers through its members at nine locations with different marginalised groups also to get intersectional perspectives. The focus was on understanding the concept of maternal health care from women’s perspectives and addressing issues like over-medicalization and regional disparities. The goal is to create a technically sound, women-centered framework through collaboration with experts from various disciplines. This initiative aligns with CommonHealth’s broader mission of evidence-based advocacy to improve program implementation and policies in reproductive health.
The research questions included

  1. What is women-centred maternal health care? What would its different components be – in terms of health systems requirements (infrastructure, human resources, supplies), provision and experience of care?
  2. Do current maternal health policy and programmes provide for women-centred maternal health care? What changes would be required to make maternal health policy and programmes women-centred?
  3. What are the gaps perceived by women in terms of what they expect as health care during pregnancy and childbirth and what they receive?
    Consultation with experts
    As a next step, CommonHealth would be under taking a consultative process by bringing together ‘experts’ in the field to deliberate on grassroots women’s experiences, expectations, and perspectives from an intersectional and equity lens. An expected outcome of this dialogue is a consensus ‘position’ on Women-Centered Maternal Health Care and a strategy to disseminate and socialize this ‘position’. We expect to document experts’ inputs into building a technically sound, but simultaneously women-centred, framework for maternal health care. The experts will include experts from the field of medicine, public health, sexual and reproductive health, community level practitioners, etc.
    Dates of consultation: 15 March (10.00 am -6.00 pm), 16th March (10 am- 1.00 pm)
    Venue: Hotel Mumbai House
    Address: Andheri – Kurla Rd, opposite Courtyard Marriot, Dr. Charatsingh Colony, S B Singh Colony, J B Nagar, Andheri East, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400093