Skip to 0 minutes and 14 seconds OONA CAMPBELL: Millennium Development Goal Five, aim to improve maternal health. Then, the face of maternal health was a woman in a remote village, perhaps in Africa or South Asia, labouring at home with an unskilled relative. No drugs, no transport. If she bled, she died. We aimed for maternal survival. The past quarter century delivered progress for some women and their newborn babies. Maternal deaths fell globally by nearly 1/2, and the use of maternity services increased markedly. Now, the picture for maternal health is more diverse. Women and babies are still left behind in too many places, but the new face of maternal health is now that of a woman who put her faith in her health system and sought care.
Skip to 1 minute and 4 seconds I look at Nargis, who delivered her baby in a health facility in India. Both survived. I wonder at her expression and at their experience. Was it bad? Did she or her baby have poor care? Is she pained or worried? Or was her experience good with life saving or life enhancing care? Is she proud and content? My name is Oona Campbell, and I’m a professor of epidemiology and reproductive health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I’m the lead educator for this MOOC on the Lancet Maternal Health Series, Global Research and Evidence.
Skip to 1 minute and 43 seconds With Professor Wendy Graham, also from the London School, I was principal investigator for the 2016 Lancet Maternal Health Series, collaborating with maternal health researchers from other leading institutions worldwide. We brought together 77 authors globally, shining a light on the determinants, trends, and prospects for maternal health as we enter the Sustainable Development Goal Era. In this series and in this MOOC, we hold that the right to good quality woman centred maternal health care is universal. In this course, we’ll hear from a range of maternal health experts on evidence from across disciplines, including epidemiology, health systems, economics, advocacy, programming, obstetrics, and midwifery. The experts explain and build on the Lancet series using videos, articles, mini lectures, and discussions. We’ll ask these questions.
Skip to 2 minutes and 40 seconds What is the state of the world’s maternal health and health care? What is quality of maternal health like, including too little too late and too much too soon? And finally, what is the future of maternal health? The course is suitable for you if you’re considering or undertaking postgraduate study in maternal health or in a related topic, such as public health, global health, medicine, or midwifery. The course deliberately covers content from high, middle, and low income settings, but we particularly welcome students and researchers from lower-middle income countries, where the burden of poor maternal health is largest. Research enables us to tell women’s stories, to describe trends, and to highlight priorities for action by all of us.
Skip to 3 minutes and 27 seconds We now have a very large set of sustainable development goals and targets with potential benefits for maternal health in many of the goals. Join our course to understand what is needed to improve the quality of care and reduce disparities in access to maternal health services in order to secure future economic and social development, and also, to support the vision of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.