Maternal and Child Health
Core concepts
Know the continuum of care from pre-pregnancy through childhood: antenatal care, skilled birth attendance, emergency obstetric care, postnatal care, immunisation, growth monitoring, and integrated management of childhood illness. Understand maternal mortality ratio and its causes (haemorrhage, hypertension, sepsis, obstructed labour, unsafe abortion), and under-5 mortality causes (neonatal conditions, pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria). Master key indicators: MMR, IMR, neonatal mortality, under-5 mortality, and how they are calculated. Understand adolescent health, family planning, and breastfeeding (exclusive for six months).
Traps
- Confusing maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births) with maternal mortality rate (per 100,000 women of reproductive age).
- Forgetting that most maternal deaths occur around delivery and postpartum.
- Mixing neonatal (first 28 days) with infant (first year) mortality.
- Assuming exclusive breastfeeding means adding water-it does not.
Worked example / rule of thumb
MMR = (maternal deaths in a year / live births in that year) × 100,000. If a country records 400 maternal deaths and 100,000 live births, MMR = 400 per 100,000. Rule of thumb: most maternal deaths are preventable with skilled attendance and timely emergency obstetric care.