This guide provides a full range of updated, evidence-based norms and standards that will enable health care providers to give high quality care during pregnancy, delivery and in the postpartum period, considering the needs of the mother and her newborn baby. All recommendations are for skilled attendants working at the primary level of health care, either at the facility or in the community. They apply to all women attending antenatal care, in delivery, postpartum or post abortion care, or who come for emergency care, and to all newborns at birth and during the first week of life (or later) for routine and emergency care. This guide is a guide for clinical decision-making. It facilitates the collection; analysis, classification and use of relevant information by suggesting key questions, essential observations and/or examinations, and recommending appropriate research-based interventions. It promotes the early detection of complications and the initiation of early and appropriate treatment, including time referral, if necessary. Correct use of this guide should help reduce high maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity rates prevalent in many parts of the developing world, thereby making pregnancy and childbirth safer.

Within the continuum of reproductive health care, antenatal care provides a platform for important health-care functions, including health promotion, screening and diagnosis, and disease prevention. It has been established that, by implementing timely and appropriate evidence-based practices, antenatal care can save lives. Endorsed by the United Nations Secretary-General, this is a comprehensive WHO guideline on routine antenatal care for pregnant women and adolescent girls. It aims to complement existing WHO guidelines on the management of specific pregnancy-related complications. The guidance captures the complex nature of the antenatal care issues surrounding healthcare practices and delivery, and prioritizes person-centered health and well-being --- not only the prevention of death and morbidity --- in accordance with a human rights-based approach.

The World Health Organization's comprehensive antenatal care (ANC) guideline WHO recommendations on antenatal care for a positive pregnancy experience was first published in 2016 with the objective of improving the quality of routine health care that all women and adolescent girls receive during pregnancy. The overarching principle - to provide pregnant service users with a positive pregnancy experience - aims to encourage countries to expand their health-care agendas beyond survival, with a view to maximizing health, human rights and the potential of their populations. This guideline presents that evidence and updated recommendation on antenatal vitamin D supplements, which updates and does not alter the corresponding recommendation previously issued.

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

This book is a comprehensive and easy-to-read guide to obstetrics and gynecology in developing countries. Although significant progress has been made towards the reduction of maternal mortality and morbidity globally, they are still unacceptably high in developing countries. This can be directly or indirectly tied to poor quality maternal health care and lack of access to cost-effective, comprehensive healthcare. Health practitioners in developing countries also contend with trying to keep abreast of recent developments in obstetrics and gynecology while dealing with lack of time, resources, and access to relevant information. This textbook was thus created by experts in obstetrics and gynecology with extensive experience in African clinical settings and consultants in developed countries to teach proper and accurate diagnosis, treatment and management of gynecologic and obstetric health issues within the context of developing countries. This second edition has been fully updated throughout with an added 25+ chapters that cover topics such as reproductive health, gynecological cancers and research methods. The book is divided into six sections: Women’s Reproductive Health; Obstetrics; Medical and Surgical Disorders in Pregnancy; General Gynecology; Gynecological Malignancies; Health Systems Organization, Research Methodology and Biostatistics. These section topics have been carefully covered by expert authors with the use of valid scientific data, policy instruments, and adapted to the cultural and social context of developing countries, with particular in depth coverage of conditions that have greater prevalence and incidence in developing countries. Each chapter also focuses on filling gaps in knowledge with a distinct pedagogical approach, starting with a set of learning objectives and ending with key takeaways for the chapter. This is an ideal guide for residents, medical students, practitioners of obstetrics and gynecology, midwives, general practitioners, and pediatricians, particularly those working in developing companies.

A guide to the practical approach of managing high-risk pregnancies, this book combines care pathways, factfiles, and patient information leaflets into in one volume. A practical approach makes this a quick reference guide for obstetricians, and is designed to integrate the antenatal care offered for women with high-risk pregnancies.