Menstruation is a normal monthly process in which blood flows from the uterus, marking the beginning of a girl’s reproductive maturity. The menstrual cycle involves phases of bleeding, preparation, ovulation, and renewal, and may be irregular in early years. Proper hygiene, pain management, and accurate information are essential for healthy menstruation. Although menstruation signals fertility, it does not mean readiness for sex or marriage.
Antenatal care (ANC) is a vital service for pregnant women that ensures the health of both mother and baby through early and regular check-ups. It helps monitor pregnancy, detect complications, and provide guidance on proper nutrition, hygiene, and birth preparedness. Attending at least eight visits and recognizing danger signs enables timely care, ultimately improving maternal and newborn health outcomes.
The National Annual Obstetric Fistula & Other Birth Injuries Status Report FY 2022/23 summarizes Uganda’s progress in prevention, surgical repair, and reintegration of fistula patients. It presents service delivery performance, partner contributions, and system gaps affecting access to timely care.
The report highlights the need for improved case identification, community awareness, data reporting, and strengthened coordination to accelerate elimination efforts.
This book, which has been appropriately titled Essential Maternal & Neonatal Care Clinical Guidelines for Uganda, is expected to be a reinforcement of the Safe Motherhood Life Saving Skills (LSS) program, the Pregnancy, Childbirth and Postnatal Care (PCPNC), Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) Training Curriculum, the National Adolescent Health Policy, The Reproductive Health Service Guidelines for Family Planning and Maternal Health Services Delivery, the Midwives Handbook, the Guide to Practice and several others.
Goals are different depending on the timing of the visit. Minimum 8 contacts are aimed for in an Uncomplicated pregnancy. If a woman books later than in first trimester, preceding goals should be combined and attended to. At all visits address any identified problems, check the BP and measure the Symphysio-Fundal Height (SFH)
The Ministry of Health (MoH) has developed an Activity Framework that aims at accelerating reduction of maternal morbidity and mortality due to PPH. This Framework is an addendum to existing national guidelines and tools, but with a lens of accelerating implementation. The Framework is informed by current global knowledge and evidence-based high impact interventions for prevention and management of PPH. The MoH is mandated to monitor implementation of the Framework and provide ongoing updates to all stakeholders, on regular basis.
Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda, each country has been given a maternal and newborn mortality reduction goal to contribute to the global target of reducing maternal mortality to 70/100.000 live births. The MPDSR system aims at identifying ALL maternal and perinatal deaths, determine causes of death and avoidable factors that lead to maternal/newborn deaths so as to respond with actions aimed at preventing future similar deaths. The MPDSR system emphasizes continuous identification and reporting of maternal/perinatal deaths and linking that information to quality improvement (QI) processes.
The pre-eclampsia interventional framework will provide a basis for tracking implementation and assessment of achievements against targets, with the overall aim of reducing the maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality due to pre-eclampsia. The framework has been designed to provide updated, practical and useful information in monitoring and evaluation, data collection, management and lastly implementation arrangements for the prevention and management of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia. The frame work requires active involvement of all stake holders right from policy and advocacy level to the clinical teams involved in patient care.
The Maternity HDU implementation guide is an addendum to the Essential Maternal and Newborn Care (EMNC) Guidelines. It is important to reference in the process of setting up maternity HDUs and High-Risk Beds. The admission criteria to HDU covers the most common causes of severe maternal morbidity and mortality including Obstetric Haemorrhage, Pre-eclampsia with severe features, Eclampsia, post-operative complications and other high risk obstetric medical conditions.
The Quality of Care Implementation Guide for Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child, Adolescent Health, and Nutrition (RMNCAH-N) provides practical guidance on RMNCAH-N quality improvement activities by level
of care and facilitate implementation of RNMCAH-N health service quality standards in accordance with NQIF & SP and the RMNCAH Sharpened Plan.
MPDSR emphasizes continuous identification and reporting of maternal and perinatal deaths including zero for none registered and utilising that information to facilitate Quality Improvement (QI) processes. The national MPDSR annual report FY 2022/23 is a result of concerted efforts of health workers that have been involved in notifying, reviewing, reporting, and following up on responses through both the sub-national and national maternal and perinatal death and response (MPDSR) committees.
This assessment report is the result of a combined effort of staff from the Uganda Ministry of Health, Maternal Child Health Technical Working Group–ETAT Steering Committee, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), USAID Maternal Child Health and Nutrition (MCHN) Activity, World Health Organization (WHO) Uganda, and all participating health facilities and health workers.
