Guidelines and training for maternal and newborn care post-Haiyan

Abstract

Pregnant women and infants have unique and priority health concerns in the aftermath of a disaster. Following Typhoon Haiyan an estimated 95,270 pregnant women were in the affected areas. The level of destruction had severely impacted all health services. Providing maternal, newborn and child health services was further complicated by the damage done to critical infrastructure such as roads and bridges, which made access more difficult and by the wide range of policies and guidelines which were been used to guide interventions by the more than 200 foreign medical teams and international organizations responding.

Our paper discusses the collaborative response mounted by Department of Health (DOH), World Health Organization Philippines (WHO-PHL) and UNICEF to overcome some of the difficulties. We specifically look at the number of births following Typhoon Haiyan, the development of maternal and neonatal care guidelines and a training program used to implement the guidelines.

We found that average number of births, in the main facility in the affected areas increased from approximately 300 to 500 deliveries ten months after the Typhoon. The development of guidelines improved care for low birth weight and pre-term babies and by providing reasonably straight forward (and low cost, low tech) interventions following disaster can be done successfully in collaboration across a wide range of service providers.