Reproductive Maternal, Newborn and Child Health

HC3 worked to expand the use of social and behavior change communication (SBCC) to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH) through capacity strengthening, implementation and research.

Capacity Strengthening for RMNCH

HC3 served as a lead technical partner of the Demand, Access and Performance Technical Resource Team for the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women’s and Children’s Health (the Commission), which was formed to catalyze and accelerate reduction in mortality rates of both women and children. The Commission identified 13 overlooked, life-saving commodities across the RMNCH ‘continuum of care’ that, if more widely accessed and properly used, could save the lives of more than six million women and children. HC3 developed a number of tools to support demand generation of the commodities, including the creation of the online Demand Generation Implementation Kit for Underutilized Commodities in RMNCH. Find out more about our work here.

As part of our support on accelerator behaviors for Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Death (EPCMD), HC3 also developed the Supporting Breastfeeding Interventions for Faith-Based Organizations Implementation Kit, and has provided technical assistance and micro-funding to local faith-based organizations in Nigeria in developing communication strategies for breastfeeding interventions.

Implementation

During the Ebola outbreak, HC3 worked to improve RMNCH outcomes through SBCC in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Community activities raised awareness, built skills, fostered community-led solutions to RMNCH challenges and strengthened linkages between communities and health facilities.

In Guatemala, HC3 developed an umbrella campaign that integrates a wide range of development issues, with a large focus on the health of mothers, infants and children during the first 1,000 days of life. The campaign integrated messaging across nutrition, agriculture and health, encouraging families and communities to ensure that pregnant women, infants, young children and breastfeeding mothers receive the nutritious foods they need in order to be healthy.

Research

HC3 collaborated with USAID and UNICEF on their joint effort in convening the Population Level Behavior Change (PLBC) Evidence Summit in child survival and development, which sought to gain clarity on the evidence of SBCC to inform policies, programs and practice; identify knowledge gaps to inform the research agenda; and draw up an evidence-to action strategy to ensure the application of learning and the active pursuit of critical knowledge gaps.

HC3 actively engaged in the evidence review process and conducted a systematic literature review to identify and document well evaluated SBCC initiatives that have made a positive contribution to promoting child survival in the East Africa region. Key findings were disseminated through a series of research briefs:

• Demonstrating Child Survival Successes at the Community Level
• Interpersonal Communication Can Work in Child Survival Programs
• The Value of Holistic/Integrated SBCC Approaches in Child Survival
• Scaling Up Child Survival Programs with Mass Media and Technology