Impact of Covid-19 on Maternal Health

This project is embedded in an international research effort led by the ITM SRH group, our aim is to understand the
impact of COVID-19 on the provision of essential maternal and newborn care globally.
The study comprises two major components:

1. Continued data collection and analysis of global online survey of maternal and newborn health professionals,
aiming to understand how health professionals and health facilities prepare and respond to COVID-19 in
regard to the care provided to women and their babies during antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care.
This is a repeat cross-sectional study with an embedded longitudinal cohort. Round 1 (March-June) gathered
1,600 responses. Round 2 was launched on July 6th. Round 3 will be conducted in this project.

2. Documentation of the preparedness and response to COVID-19 among large maternity/newborn wards in
four sub-Saharan African countries (Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania) over time. This study started in May
2020, and is collecting data from four hospitals. We hypothesize that mega-maternities are an untapped
resource for identifying coping strategies and innovative solutions to improving maternal and perinatal health
in urban contexts. This is a mixed-methods, longitudinal in-depth case study of each hospital relying on semistructured
interviews, visual data documentation, and routine health records analysis.