Focused Post-Partum Care (FPPC)
Duration: July 2021 - June 2023
Background
Postpartum period is a high-risk timeframe for maternal deaths, and complications after delivery are the leading causes of maternal deaths globally. Despite this, women who deliver in the Sagnarigu Municipality in the Northern Region receive little to no education, clinical assessment or peer support tailored to their health needs.
Routine health checks and education offered at health facilities within the municipality are mostly targeted at the babies, despite the fact that newborn mothers could be at risk of losing their lives due to postpartum health issues.
The quest to provide newborn mothers in Sagnarigu with postpartum care and adequate information for them to determine potential complications after childbirth necessitated the birth of this project; Focused Post-Partum Care (Focused PPC), being implemented by Savana Signatures with funding from the University of Notre Dame in the United States of America. It seeks to fill the gaps that put many mothers at risk of losing their lives due to postpartum health issues.
Beneficiaries of Focused PPC, which is being implemented in four health facilities (Choggu, Bagabaga, Kalpohin and Kanvilli) within the municipality, receive uniquely focused education, care and support curated to their postpartum needs. This seeks to guide them to identify and manage after-birth warning signs and complications.
Our Role
Broadly, Savana Signatures, with support from the Ghana Health Service, is providing education for the women in the intervention group.
- Providing clinical assessment to postpartum mothers.
- Providing educational support by sharing health information during sessions with the aid of audio-visual content.
- Promoting peer support among mothers.
- Supporting midwives to deliver quality and focused post-partum care education to new mothers and to collect data in the Sagnarigu municipality.
- Enhancing the capacity of midwives to provide centered post-partum care education and support to new mothers.
- Developing a Focused Postpartum training guide with support from Ghana Health Service to facilitate focused postpartum sessions.
Highlights
- Twelve intervention groups and 12 control groups have been formed across the four facilities for the survey.
- 192 women have received education on after-birth warning signs and what to do to manage them should they identify any.
- 72 women in the intervention group demonstrated knowledge of post-birth warning signs as compared to the women in the control group.
- More than half of the women have exhibited positive postpartum behaviours by seeking healthcare as soon as they notice any postpartum danger signs.
- Some of the women in the intervention group have opted for family planning as a result of the sessions.