Maternal, Newborn, & Child Health

JSI promotes facility-based childbirth performed by a skilled professional, but this is often not enough to reduce maternal mortality. Facilities must have the appropriate equipment and supplies and a functional referral system and offer client-centered service. We work with health systems, providers, and communities to ensure that women around the world have access to the services and supplies they need during pregnancy, childbirth, and throughout their lives.

Our programs have improved antenatal and postnatal care through critical interventions such as iron supplementation and chlorhexidine application. We also increase access to skilled birth attendants and health facilities, and ensure better treatment of obstetric and newborn complications.

Services:

• Strengthen the health system to deliver better client-centered care.
• Build capacity at all levels to maintain health gains and scale-up successful interventions.
• Strengthen providers’ skills in emergency obstetrics.
• Improve respectful care.
• Build links between communities and health systems by soliciting community input on the quality of care and promoting government stewardship.

We take a comprehensive approach to mitigating the most pressing health threats to children including malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, and undernutrition. Our work has contributed to declines in under-5 mortality in more than 80 countries.

Our projects have included integrating community case management of childhood illnesses, supporting training for essential newborn care, and promoting early and exclusive breastfeeding. We have also been instrumental in establishing and expanding immunization programs for people of all ages.

Services:

• Design evidence-based and contextually appropriate and programs.
• Build capacity of health workers at all levels to meet the needs of children, including newborns.
• Implement integrated, community-based approaches.
• Enhance quality of delivery and integrate management of newborn and childhood illnesses into other services.
• Build links between the community and health care facilities.
• Strengthen the continuum of care.
• Building on decades of leadership for child health, we are the secretariat of the global child health task force.

In developing countries, 28 percent of newborn deaths are due to infections, many of which enter through the umbilical cord. We are at the forefront of global efforts to prevent newborn infections by promoting the use of chlorhexidine, a simple antiseptic, to treat freshly cut umbilical cord stumps.

In countries including Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Madagascar, we have worked with ministries to introduce, package, test, and scale-up the use of chlorhexidine for both home and health facility deliveries.

In 2013, we were awarded a Pioneer Prize for Science and Technology from USAID in recognition of the global influence of our life-saving chlorhexidine program in Nepal. Our work has been funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, the Government of Norway, Grand Challenges Canada, DFID, and UNFPA.