Essential & Emergency Obstetric Care

Appropriate maternal health care means the difference between life and death for a pregnant woman. Ensuring that women everywhere have access to such care could save hundreds of thousands of lives a year. Common complications such as pre-eclampsia or a malaria infection, as well as serious conditions like obstructed labor, can be safely managed as long as skilled care is available and accessed in time. EngenderHealth is working to make high quality essential and emergency obstetric care available in places where women and families need it most. We do this by: 

• Improving providers’ clinical skills for routine prenatal care
• Ensuring that life-saving postabortion care is available
• Upgrading facilities in consultation with local partners
• Increasing availability and quality of emergency obstetric services, including
  • management of obstructed labor
  • prevention and management of postpartum hemorrhage
• Treating and preventing obstetric fistula
• Mobilizing communities to recognize danger signs and have plans for emergency transport of pregnant women to health facilities
• Promoting increased availability of a low-cost treatment for preeclampsia and eclampsia, leading causes of maternal mortality worldwide