The Drum Beat – Issue 616 – Communication for Maternal and Childhood Health
| THIS ISSUE INCLUDES: | |
| MCH BEHAVIOUR CHANGE STRATEGIES: | Opportunities, Evidence, Involvement |
| EVIDENCE SUMMIT: | Enhancing Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services |
| COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT FOR MCH: | Mobile Mom Teams, MCH on the Radio, Local Theatre |
| HELP SUSTAIN THE CI: | Become a Partner |
| ICT 4 MCH: | Defeating Diarrhoea, Asia-Pacific Lessons, Text4Baby |
| From The Communication Initiative Network – where communication and media are central to social and economic development. |
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| BEHAVIOUR CHANGE COMMUNICATION (BCC) STRATEGIES | |
| 1. Window of Opportunity | |
| According to CARE, maternal and child nutrition during the first 1,000 days – from conception through the age of two – shapes a child’s future. CARE’s Window of Opportunity project (2008-2012) drew on BCC activities: a mix of mass media, traditional or folk media, and interpersonal communication activities that varied according to each country context (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Peru, and Sierra Leone). Preliminary results from Window’s final evaluations indicate significant improvements in maternal dietary and infant and young child feeding practices and nutrition. | |
| 2. Maternal Infant Young Child Nutrition – Family Planning (MIYCN-FP) Integration Toolkit | |
| «Integrating nutrition and family planning social and behavior change communication (SBCC) activities can benefit the health of mothers and children.» This toolkit contains materials for advocacy, training, client counselling, programme implementation, and learning from country experiences around the issues of: exclusive breastfeeding and use of the lactational amenorrhoea method (LAM), complementary feeding with breastfeeding and use of modern family planning methods, and healthy spacing of pregnancies. [From K4Health, June 2012] | |
| 3. Programa Comunitario Materno Infantil de Diversificación Alimentaria – PROCOMIDA | |
| PROCOMIDA aims to improve the general health and nutritional status of pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children under the age of 2 who are vulnerable to food and nutrition security issues in different villages in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. «Because of the high number of monolingual illiterate population, especially women, we identified the need to prioritize oral language more than written language and the use of the local language (Q’eqchi) instead of Spanish. Besides, the material is graphic and contextualized so beneficiaries identify themselves with the posters.» [Mercy Corps with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)] | |
| 4. Improving Complementary Feeding Practices: A Review of Evidence from South Asia | |
| The project team short-listed 13 maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition (MNCHN) interventions carried out as part of Vistaar (2006-2012). These interventions applied multiple approaches, the most common of which was community-based BCC through household-level counselling and education. Some interventions included capacity building of community-level health care providers, and a few applied a «positive deviance» approach (promoting positive feeding practices which are identified and accepted locally). [Mar. 2008] | |
| 5. Community Involvement to Increase Utilization of Maternal Health Services: Experiences from Rural Bangladesh | |
| Community members were engaged to select economically poor pregnant women, create awareness in the community through several BCC activities, and organise regular monthly meetings for identifying barriers and possible solutions to improve the utilisation of maternity care. Amongst the findings: use of antenatal care (ANC) increased from 41 to 89%; institutional delivery increased from 2.3 to 18%; and prenatal care (PNC) increased from 10 to 60%. [From Population Council and University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Mar. 2011] | |
| 6. Merlin’s Maternal Health Project | |
| The involvement of the whole village (Chin Hills, North West Myanmar) at every stage is part of this effort to provide peer support and community responsibility for healthy behaviour change in the area of maternal health. Messages are developed and delivered through a variety of culturally appropriate methods including focus group discussions, awareness sessions by community leaders, songs, and plays. According to Merlin, working closely with community members and focusing activities on prevention and awareness can make a real difference in improving the health status of these vulnerable communities. | |
| 7. HIV/AIDS/Maternal/Child Health Public Service Announcement Campaign | |
| Children participate in many of these television and radio public service announcements (PSAs), designed to encourage awareness and inspire healthy behaviours. For example, in one of the PSAs, a group of enthusiastic schoolchildren sing and dance to a peer who wants to play with them, but whose hands are dirty. Joyfully, they encourage him to avoid diarrhoea through handwashing by joining him in washing with soap. He is then invited to join their circle of friendship and song. [BBC Media Action] | |
| 8. Involving Men in Handwashing Behavior Change Interventions in Senegal | |
| by Seydou Nourou Koita
This brief shares the experience of the Global Scaling Up Handwashing programme in involving men in Senegal in the effort to apply BCC approaches to encourage handwashing with soap. According to the brief, as gatekeepers, men allow access to their household and provide funds for soap. As protectors, men can play a follow-up role to the outreach session and ensure that household members wash their hands with soap. As role models, men wash their hands with soap while encouraging others to do the same. [From the World Bank, June 2010] |
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| 9. It Takes a Village | |
| This comic book seeks to teach pregnant women good maternal health practices including diet, traditional medicines, and spiritual connectivity with the growing baby both during pregnancy and after childbirth. While speaking through a mother’s perspective, the comic also addresses healthy behaviours and a father’s role in childcare. [From the Healthy Aboriginal Network (HAN), Apr. 2012] | |
| 10. Introducing FOAM: A Framework to Analyze Handwashing Behaviors to Design Effective Handwashing Programs | |
| by Yolande Coombes and Jacqueline Devine
The focus is on learning how to apply promotional approaches to behaviour change to generate widespread and sustained improvements in handwashing with soap at scale among women of reproductive age (ages 15-49) and primary school-aged children (ages 5-9). FOAM is based on behavioural determinants that either promote or constrain behaviour change. [From the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), Aug. 2010] |
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| U.S. Government Evidence Summit: Enhancing Provision and Use of Maternal Health Services through Financial Incentives |
| Anticipated outcomes of the Evidence Summit, held April 24-25 2012, included: initial policy and practice recommendations for Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC) governments and donors; identification of evidence gaps to inform a unified research agenda; and creation of a community of practice linking the maternal health and economics communities to advance the evidence base together for sustainable effective use of financial incentives. |
| To learn more, click here. |
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| COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: EXAMPLES FROM AFRICA | |
| 11. Beyond Technical Solutions: Critical Pathway in the Political Economy of Health Development in Northern Nigeria | |
| by Emmanuel Sokpo and Jeffrey W. Mecaskey
This presentation outlines the goals and strategies of a Nigerian programme seeking to create behaviour change around MCH using a political economy approach. A case study is provided: the Gunduma approach. Stakeholder engagement and local ownership were pivotal, which included building a supportive environment by, for example, conducting cross-state peer reviews among health policymakers and managers. |
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| 12. Introducing Integrated Mobile Teams to Burundi | |
| To improve the effectiveness of integrated mobile teams (IMTs) events, remote locations are chosen. The grassroots group Mamans Lumieres, a group of community mothers who employ the Positive Deviance/Hearth approach to improved nutrition with locally available foods and healthful community norms and behaviours, conduct cooking demonstrations for clients and provide nutritional rehabilitation services for acutely malnourished children. The Lightning Mothers also follow up with children and parents after the event is over. [Pathfinder International, Mar. 2012] | |
| 13. Phukusi la Moyo (Bag of Life) | |
| Focusing on MCH in Malawi, this weekly 30-minute mother radio programme works to deliver learning content to a geographically dispersed audience. It relies on a network of trained women’s listening groups who are involved in all aspects of programming. They move beyond «messaging» and a one-way «pushing content» approach towards more interactive and engaged models for local educational programming. Community activities are facilitated by trained local women who use visual aids such as picture cards and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods to stimulate discussions. [MaiMwana Project, Mudzi Wathu Community Radio station, Story Workshop, Commonwealth of Learning] | |
| 14. Using Social Analysis and Action in Madagascar to Break from Family Planning ‘Business as Usual’ in Madagascar | |
| This case study explores and evaluates a communication approach called Social Analysis and Action (SAA), which the organisation CARE designed to enable community members in Madagascar to initiate and sustain both dialogue and action on issues (including those that deal with cultural and social norms) that affect them and their communities. CARE found that this experience sparked: greater acceptance of family planning; the easing of taboos on communication about both sexuality between parents and children and also youth contraceptive use. [Feb. 2012] | |
| 15. Participatory Communication Unlocks a Powerful Cultural Resource: Grandmother Networks Promote Maternal and Child Health | |
| by Judi Aubel
«The ‘grandmother-inclusive methodology’…uses participatory methods of communication as dialogue….In Laos, Senegal and Mali experiences using this methodology have demonstrated that the inclusion of grandmothers in MCH programs increases the cultural relevance of development programs, leading to greater community support for these initiatives and, in turn, contributes to greater program effectiveness.» [From the Grandmother Project, Sept. 2009] |
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| 16. Community Participation: Lessons for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health | |
| by Mikey Rosato, Glenn Laverack, Lisa Howard Grabman, Prasanta Tripa, Nirmala Nair, Charles Mwansambo, Kishwar Azad, Joanna Morrison, Zulfiqar Bhutta, Henry Perry, Susan Rifkin, and Anthony Costello
This article revisits the Alma-Alta Declaration on the subject of primary health care for reduction of maternal and child mortality. It reviews evidence through examples of community mobilisation that reduced maternal and infant mortality and proposes that «[s]trategies to improve maternal and child health should… involve the community as a complement to any facility-based component.» [From The Lancet, Sept. 2008] |
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| 17. Community Theater for Improved Nutrition: A Guide for Program Managers and Theatre Groups | |
| This document explores the work of the Zambian Infant & Young Child Nutrition Project (IYCN) to train local theatre groups to integrate nutrition messages into their performances. The performers reported that mothers followed up with them after the performance to ask additional nutrition questions, and community members reported learning more about good nutrition practices. Performers also said they felt motivated with their new knowledge on infant and young child feeding, and that they could correctly interpret growth cards for children younger than five years of age, as well as counsel mothers. [From IYCN, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Jan. 2011] | |
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| Help Sustain The CI |
| Become a Communication Initiative Partner
The CI Partners (a) collectively provide the strategic guidance and direction for The Communication Initiative – ensuring that it meets the overall development priorities and needs of the communication and media community and (b) provide significant resources to support this overall initiative. Click here to view the current CI Partners. Please contact Warren Feek wfeek@comminit.com if your organisation is considering providing this significant level of support to The CI. |
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| ICT APPROACHES | |
| 18. defeatDD.org | |
| This web-based initiative aims to provide tools to inform and inspire advocates committed to joining their voices and raising awareness about diarrhoeal disease. The website also provides key documents and links to information on simple, lifesaving interventions that PATH believes have the potential to significantly impact diarrhoea incidence worldwide. | |
| 19. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Assessment: Leveraging ICT Effectively to Strengthen HIV Prevention for Newborns and Monitoring of Maternal and Child Health in Asia-Pacific | |
| by Lori Thorell
This report shares the results of a regional information and communication technology (ICT) assessment carried out in 11 countries to examine the current and potential use of ICT in strengthening outcomes related to the monitoring of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. «[I]mmediate attention is needed to improve data and information management in line with an overall health information system strengthening strategy.» [From the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) and Asia-Pacific Shared Service Center (APSSC), Nov. 2010] |
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| 20. Text4baby | |
| Text4baby is a free mobile information service offering practical information for improved maternal and infant health in the United States (US). [National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB)] | |
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| This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Kier Olsen DeVries. | |
| The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries. |
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