This paper sought to determine the safety and feasibility of home-based prophylaxis of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) with misoprostol, including assessment of the need for referrals and additional interventions.
This paper evaluates the safety and acceptability of long-term community-based use of misoprostol for management of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) in home-births, by comparing deliveries with and without misoprostol use in communities of Kigoma, Tanzania.
Between February 2002 and January 2004 in the Adigrat Zonal Hospital, covering one-fifth of the large Tigray region of North West Ethiopia, there were 907 admissions with a diagnosis of abortion. Among these, 521 were induced by traditional, unsafe methods. Unsafe abortion was the leading cause of admission, accounting for 12.6% of all bed occupancy throughout this general hospital and 60.6% of the gynecological admissions. About 57% of patients admitted with unsafe abortions had serious complications, including tubo-ovarian abscess, vaginal laceration, uterine perforation,...
This collaborative project demonstrates that receiving injectable contraceptives from community-based reproductive health agents proved as safe and acceptable to Ethiopian women as receiving them in health posts from health extension workers. These findings support the development, introduction and scale-up of programs to train community-based health workers to safely administer injectable contraceptives.
VSI in collaboration with local and international partner organizations conducted operations research (OR) across seven countries in Africa and Asia to determine the feasibility, acceptability, and program effectiveness of misoprostol use to prevent postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) at the community level. Developed for policy makers, stakeholders and researchers, the compendium includes an overview of the basic components of the OR model, country program summaries, and cross-cutting results and best practices to contribute to the growing evidence base on the community-level use of...
In this commentary co-authored by VSI and the Regional Experts’ Summit Group, 35 ob/gyns and public health experts from 12 countries in Africa call for political commitment to expanding access to misoprostol for its many uses in maternal health.
Since Nigeria became the first country in the world to register misoprostol, there has been an explosion in global interest around the medicine. VSI is proud to have contributed to this body of work with its unique approach and pioneering misoprostol program.
Unsafe abortion is one of leading causes of maternal mortality in Ethiopia, accounting for 30% of maternal deaths. With the 2005 revision of the criminal code, Ethiopia has one of the most liberal abortion laws on the continent and abortion-related services, including postabortion care (PAC), are available in both public and private facilities.
This brief, written in French, presents the findings from a study on misoprostol for treatment of incomplete abortion and miscarriage in Madagascar which demonstrate the safety and acceptability of the medication-based service. VSI supported partner Marie Stopes Madagascar in its implementation.
In Zambia, most of the maternal deaths due to PPH occur in places where there are few skilled birth attendants or a lack of skills or resources to manage bleeding and shock. This brief summarizes VSI’s Zambia program that trained providers on the distribution of misoprostol tablets to women in order to prevent PPH.
