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Involving Male Partners in Maternity Care - Better Adherence to Healthy Practices after Childbirth

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Strategy researched

A set of educational sessions designed to involve the male partners of pregnant women in facility-based maternity care in order to influence care-seeking, healthy breastfeeding, and contraceptive practices after childbirth

Impact achieved

The intervention group showed an 11.7% increase in attendance at 2 or more scheduled, outpatient postnatal care consultations, an 11.4% increase in exclusive breastfeeding, and a 6.4% increase of effective modern contraception use, compared to the control group. There also was an 8.1% increase in the use of long-acting contraception for pregnant women who received interactive group educational sessions, among other similar results.

Country of study

Burkina Faso

Research methodology

RCT

Journal

Bulletin of the World Health Organization; July 2018

Journal paper title and link

Involving male partners in maternity care in Burkina Faso: a randomized controlled trial

Excerpt from Abstract

"Involving men as supportive partners in maternity care was associated with better adherence to recommended healthy practices after childbirth."

Summary at this link

 

Why the focus on direct impact data?

A common challenge from policy makers, funders, community members, people directly experiencing development issues, and governments is: Demonstrate your Impact. Prove that what you are doing works. The high quality, highly credible data presented on the cards below is designed to help you answer that question for your social change, behaviour change, community engagement, communication and media for development, strategy formulation, policy engagement and funding initiatives. At this link filter the research data to your specific interests and priorities

Why a playing cards design?

There is a physical pack of cards with this data (to get a copy please request through the comment form for any card). The card approach allows for easy identification and selection of relevant direct impact data in any context. For example if talking with a donor and you need to identify proof of impact say "take a look at the 7 of Hearts". Quick access can be provided to high-quality data for many areas of your work – funding, planning, policy, advocacy, community dialogue, training, partner engagement, and more. A card deck is also engaging, easy to use and share, a conversation starter, and a resource - and they are fun and different. So we kept that design for the online images as it can serve similar purposes. 

What are the criteria for inclusion?

The impact data presented meets the following high standard for inclusion criteria:

  • Positive change or trend in a priority development issue;
  • Social change or behaviour change strategy or process;
  • Randomized Control Trial or Systematic Review methodology;
  • High quality peer review journal published;
  • Numeric impact data point
  • Published since 2010.