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Table 3 Core Maternal Health Indicators for Global Monitoring and Reporting

From: A common monitoring framework for ending preventable maternal mortality, 2015–2030: phase I of a multi-step process

 

Indicator

Priority areas for indicator development

Impact

1. Maternal mortality ratioa c

 

2. Maternal cause of death (direct/indirect) based on ICD-MM

 

3. Adolescent birth ratec

 

COVERAGE: care for all women and girls

4. Four or more antenatal care visitsc

Content of antenatal careb

5. Skilled attendant at birtha c

Content of postnatal care

6. Institutional delivery

Respectful maternity careb

7. Early postnatal/postpartum care for woman and baby (within 2 days of birth)a c

 

8. Met need for family planningc

 

9. Uterotonic immediately after birth for prevention of post-partum hemorrhage (among facility births)b

 

COVERAGE: care for women and girls with complications

10. Caesarean section ratea

Met need for Emergency Obstetric Care

INPUTS: counting

11. Maternal death registration

 

INPUT: Availability of care

12. Availability of functional Emergency Obstetric Care facilitiesa

 
  1. aENAP indicator
  2. bLink to WHO Quality of Care metrics
  3. cLink to WHO 100 Core indicators
  4. NOTES:
  5. - WHO will propose a definition for maternal death registration
  6. - Availability of functional emergency obstetric care facilities requires additional definition - The current definition will be used in the short term, with ongoing efforts to improve definition (both numerator and denominator)
  7. - Countries should continue to monitor met need for emergency obstetric are and update definitions once they are finalized based on ongoing work
  8. - Additional priority indicators – Efforts will link with ongoing efforts such as WHO Antenatal Care Guideline revision process, WHO Quality of Care Initiative, Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescent Health
  9. - Currently, antenatal and postnatal care are measured through the number of contacts with the health system (as defined as “visits”), but the quality or content of these visits are not assessed. Two of the priority areas moving forward include defining core content for these antenatal and postnatal visits as well as measures to assess those the core content areas
  10. - Content of antenatal care could include: blood pressure, testing and treatment of infectious disease, counseling on danger signs, testing for HIV/AIDS, prevention of malaria during pregnancy, birth planning, etc. Content of postpartum care could include: monitoring bleeding, counseling for family planning, observing breastfeeding, counseling and assessment of postpartum depression, etc