The Maternal and Newborn Health in Ethiopia Partnership (MaNHEP), based at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, is a two-and-a-half year initiative to demonstrate a community-oriented model for improving maternal and newborn health (MNH) care in rural Ethiopia. The project will work in six districts in Oromia and Amhara Regions to strengthen the delivery of MNH services during the critical birth to 48-hour period when mothers and newborns are most vulnerable. Training activities will focus on improving the capabilities and performance of frontline health workers to deliver these services. Other efforts will seek to increase demand for MNH services by pregnant women and promote healthy self-care behaviors that can improve newborn survival. Finally, a continuous quality improvement approach will be applied to strengthen district (woreda)-level health systems to identify best MNH service delivery practices at the community level for spread throughout Ethiopia. With more women and newborns receiving MNH care, a reduction in maternal and newborn mortality rates is expected to occur over time.
