MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership developed a technical brief on the nutrition components of the WHO maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (MNCAH) Quality of Care (QoC) standards and associated policy and implementation considerations, and early learning related to implementing these nutrition standards. The primary objective of the brief is to raise awareness among nutrition and MNCAH stakeholders (country and global) of the nutrition QoC standards, and of the opportunities to apply the standards to improve the quality of integrated MNCAH and nutrition services. The brief highlights early learning from three QoC Network countries (Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Ghana) that are implementing efforts to improve the quality of integrated health and nutrition services, and outlines policy and implementation considerations for improving the quality of integrated nutrition and MNCAH services. MCGL will continue to use the brief as part of its technical and capacity development assistance efforts with a subset of countries to advance nutrition as a component of QoC efforts for women, newborns, children, and adolescents.
The audience for this brief includes nutrition and maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health policy makers and program implementers in low- and middle-income countries. Nutrition must be prioritized within MNCAH QoC programming to ensure long-term health impacts, which requires committed, multi-sectoral collaboration among stakeholders. The Network for Improving Quality of Care for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health is an important platform for improving integrated nutrition and MNCAH care and services for women and children across the care continuum. Efforts must be made to support nutrition stakeholders to use this platform.