By: Sheela Sinharoy, MPH
Sunday began with a symposium titled, Delivering Nutrition Interventions to Women during Pregnancy: Beyond Individual Interventions to Comprehensive Antenatal Guidelines and Care. A series of speakers made clear that as antenatal care (ANC) models continue to evolve, there is plenty of room for improvement to provide a positive pregnancy experience for women and their families.
ANC is not meeting its potential. This was the conclusion of the first speaker, Erica Phillips. She discussed the model of focused ANC (FANC) recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), which involves 75-80 tasks for an intake visit and 60-65 tasks for each follow-up. She explained that following these recommendations would require an estimated 30-40 minutes for a first visit and 20 minutes for a follow-up. Even when recommended tasks are completed, quality of care may still be low. Ms. Phillips stated that “where FANC has been adopted, success has been limited.”
Still, ANC can be an effective platform for breastfeeding promotion, according to the next speaker, Mduduzi Mbuya. He presented a case study from the Sanitation, Hygiene, Infant Nutrition Efficacy (SHINE) trial in Zimbabwe. The country faces a critical shortage of health workers, with only 9.8 skilled health workers per 10,000 people (as compared to a ratio of 117:10,000 in the USA). SHINE therefore engaged community-based village health workers and found that the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding at six months of age increased from 23% to 68%. Dr. Mbuya attributed this result primarily to strong fidelity of implementation by village health workers.
Micronutrient supplementation is another important component of ANC, and Kate Dickin spoke about a trial of calcium supplementation in Kenya and Ethiopia. There, researchers found that women were motivated and willing to take calcium supplements as recommended and that most women sustained their adherence to the supplements through the six-week study period and said they would continue through the end of their pregnancies. Dr. Dickin attributed this largely to the intervention’s behavior change communication strategy, which was based on extensive formative research and addressed context-specific motivators and barriers.
Next, Catharine Taylor spoke about the way forward and the need for integrated, women-centered models of care. She said that ANC models should take the local context into account; have all goods and personnel in same physical space; provide clear and consistent guidelines, training and supervision to health workers; provide demonstrations and encourage active engagement and discussion; provide incentives and support; and implement women-held records and integrated health registers. As examples, she described the Centering Pregnancy model and women’s support groups, which have shown promise in a number of developing country settings.
Finally, Rebecca Stoltzfus closed the session, emphasizing the need for more community-based evidence, especially looking at “packages of ANC that are contextually adapted to be delivered in the most effective ways.” Thus, symposium attendees walked away with a substantial research agenda for the strengthening of antenatal guidelines and care.
