Maternal deaths remain a major public health concern in low- and middle-income countries. Implementation of maternal and perinatal deaths surveillance and response (MPDSR) is vital to reduce preventable deaths. The study aimed to assess implementation of MPDSR in Rwanda. We applied mixed methods following the six-step audit cycle for MPDSR to determine the level of implementation at 10 hospitals and three health centers. Results showed various stages of implementation of MPDSR across facilities. Maternal death audits were conducted regularly, and facilities had action plans to address modifiable factors. However, perinatal death audits were not formally done. Implementation was challenged by lack of enough motivated staff, heavy workload, lack of community engagement, no linkages with existing quality improvement efforts, no guidelines for review of stillbirths, incomplete medical records, poor classification of cause of death, and no sharing of feedback among others. Implementation of MPDSR varied from facility to facility indicating varying capacity gaps. There is need to integrate perinatal death audits with maternal death audits and ensure the process is part of other quality improvement initiatives at the facility level. More efforts are needed to support health facilities to improve implementation of MPDSR and contribute to achieving sustainable development goal (SDG) 3.

Background: Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) is a competency-based educational method for an evidence-based protocol to manage birth asphyxia in low resource settings. HBB has been shown to improve health worker skills and neonatal outcomes, but studies have documented problems with skills retention and little evidence of effectiveness at large scale in routine practice. This study examined the effect of complementing provider training with clinical mentorship and quality improvement as outlined in the second edition HBB materials. This “system-oriented” approach was implemented in all public health facilities (n = 172) in ten districts in Rwanda from 2015 to 2018. Methods: A before-after mixed methods study assessed changes in provider skills and neonatal outcomes related to birth asphyxia. Mentee knowledge and skills were assessed with HBB objective structured clinical exam (OSCE) B pre and post training and during mentorship visits up to 1 year afterward. The study team extracted health outcome data across the entirety of intervention districts and conducted interviews to gather perspectives of providers and managers on the approach. Results: Nearly 40 % (n = 772) of health workers in maternity units directly received mentorship. Of the mentees who received two or more visits (n = 456), 60 % demonstrated competence (received > 80% score on OSCE B) on the first mentorship visit, and 100% by the sixth. In a subset of 220 health workers followed for an average of 5 months after demonstrating competence, 98% maintained or improved their score. Three of the tracked neonatal health outcomes improved across the ten districts and the fourth just missed statistical significance: neonatal admissions due to asphyxia (37% reduction); fresh stillbirths (27% reduction); neonatal deaths due to asphyxia (13% reduction); and death within 30 min of birth (19% reduction, p = 0.06). Health workers expressed satisfaction with the clinical mentorship approach, noting improvements in confidence, patient flow within the maternity, and data use for decision-making. Conclusions: Framing management of birth asphyxia within a larger quality improvement approach appears to contribute to success at scale. Clinical mentorship emerged as a critical element. The specific effect of individual components of the approach on provider skills and health outcomes requires further investigation.

Most maternal and perinatal deaths could be prevented through timely access to skilled birth attendants. Women should access appropriate obstetric care during pregnancy, labor, and puerperium. Maternity waiting homes (MWHs) permit access to emergency obstetric care when labor starts. This study compared maternal and perinatal outcomes among MWH users and non-users through a retrospective cohort study. Data were collected through obstetric chart reviews and analyzed using STATA version 15. Of the 8144 deliveries reported between 2015 and 2019, 1305 women had high-risk pregnancies and were included in the study. MWH users had more spontaneous vaginal deliveries compared to non-users (38.6% versus 16.8%) and less cesarean sections (57.7% versus 76.7%). Maternal morbidities such as postpartum hemorrhage occurred less frequently among users than non-users (2.13% versus 5.64%). Four women died among non-users while there was no death among users. Non-users had more stillbirths than users (7.68% versus 0.91%). The MWH may have contributed to the observed differences in outcomes. However, many women with high risk pregnancies did not use the MWH, indicating a probable gap in awareness, usefulness, or their inability to stay due to other responsibilities at home. Use of MWHs at scale could improve maternal and perinatal outcomes in Rwanda.

The World Health Organization recommends the implementation of maternity waiting homes (MWH) to reduce delays in access to obstetric care, particularly for high-risk pregnancies and mothers living far from health facilities, and as a result, several countries have rolled out MWHs. However, Rwanda has not implemented this recommendation on a large scale. There is only one MWH in the country, hence a gap in knowledge regarding the potential utilisation and benefits of MWHs. To explore providers’ and clients’ perspectives on facilitators and barriers to the use of MWH in rural Rwanda. We conducted a qualitative study to explore health providers’ and clients’ perspectives on facilitators and barriers to the use of MWH in Rwanda, between December 2020 and January 2021. We used key informant interviews and focus group discussions to collect data. Data were analysed using NVivo qualitative analysis software version 11. Facilitators included perceptions that the MWH offered either a peaceful and home-like environment, good-quality services, or timely obstetric services, and was associated with good maternal and neonatal outcomes. Barriers included limited awareness of the MWH among pregnant women, fear of health providers to operate the MWH at full capacity, women’s lack of autonomy, uncertainty over funding for the MWH, and perceived high user fees. The Ruli MWH offers a peaceful environment for pregnant women while providing quality and timely obstetric care, resulting in positive maternal and neonatal outcomes for women. However, its existence and benefits are not widely known, and its use is limited due to inadequate resources. There is a need for increased awareness of the MWH among healthcare providers and the community, and lessons from this MWH could inform the scale up of MWHs in Rwanda.

Maternal near-miss (MNM) and maternal death (MD) reviews may improve the quality of obstetric care. We assessed the incidence of severe maternal outcomes (SMO) and process indicators among maternity waiting home (MWH) users and non-users in a rural Rwandan hospital. We conducted a retrospective cohort study among women who were eligible for admission to the MWH (users and non-users) at Ruli Hospital in Rwanda and had delivered between January 2015 to December 2019. Using the adapted sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) MNM approach, data for each woman were collected from admission until discharge or death. There were 8,144 deliveries during the study period and 1,305 of them met the criteria for admission at the MWH. There were 326 users and 905 non-users that had live births, respectively. Overall, SMOs were more frequent among MWH non-users [122/905 (13.4%) vs. 8/326 (2.4%) for MWH users]. The leading cause of SMO was post-partum haemorrhage (PPH) (87.5% among MWH users and 45.1% among non-users), followed by sepsis and hypertensive disorders. The MNM incidence ratio was 24.5 for MWH users and 130.4 for non-users. There were four MDs among non-users (MI of 3.3%) due to coincidental conditions and other obstetric complications, and these occurred without admission to the hospital's high dependency unit (HDU). Management of PPH, sepsis and hypertensive complications was optimal. The incidence of SMO was high among MWH non-users. The quality of care in the management of the major causes of SMO was found to be optimal. However, identification and management of coincidental conditions, unanticipated complications of management, and other obstetric complications were not adequate among MWH non-users. There is a need to train health workers to improve the detection and management of these complications to improve quality of care as well as encourage the utilization of MWHs to reduce the burden due to SMO.