Protecting mothers and babies

Safe Pregnancy and Childbirth

When women and communities have a say, lifesaving care in pregnancy and childbirth reaches the mothers who need it

Overview

WACI Health advocates for safe pregnancy and childbirth for every woman in Africa. Its work brings communities into decisions on pre-eclampsia, maternal anaemia and postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), and pushes for the policies that put proven medicines and diagnostics within reach.

Pre-eclampsia, maternal anaemia and PPH are among the most common and most preventable threats to the lives of mothers and their babies. Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are the second leading cause of direct maternal death worldwide, and maternal anaemia affects an estimated 37% of pregnant women globally. PPH is the leading cause of preventable maternal death in low- and middle-income countries.

Effective tools to prevent and treat all three conditions already exist. The challenge is getting them to the people who need them. That depends on national guidelines that reflect the latest evidence, on research shaped by the women it is meant to serve, and on communities who know what is available and ask for it.

WACI Health works on two fronts. As the lead community and civil society partner in SUPREME Secure, a Unitaid-funded project running from 2026 to 2029, it helps expand access to diagnostics and treatments for pre-eclampsia, eclampsia and maternal anaemia in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Ghana and Senegal. On PPH, it works with governments, researchers and technical partners to close the gap between global evidence and what is available to women in Africa, through policy advocacy, community engagement in clinical research, and partnerships.

Safe Pregnancy and Childbirth

Purpose

01 Ensure the people most affected by pre-eclampsia, maternal anaemia and PPH, including women, adolescents, marginalised groups and their families, help shape the research, products and policies meant to serve them.
02 Speed up access to proven diagnostics and medicines for pregnancy and childbirth complications, and build awareness so that women and communities know what is available and can ask for it.
03 Put the latest evidence into national policy, so that guidelines and Essential Medicines Lists across Africa reflect current WHO recommendations.
04 Build strategic partnerships between ministries of health, civil society and technical partners to sustain progress on maternal health equity.

Mothers with their babies taking part in a SUPREME community focus group discussion

Safe Pregnancy and Childbirth

What We Do

As the lead community and civil society partner in the SUPREME Secure project, WACI Health is working to ensure the project is informed by the people most affected, including women, adolescents, marginalised groups, male partners and traditional leaders.

Working with local and in-country community-based organisations, WACI Health has supported the establishment of Community Advisory Boards (CABs) at country and regional level, giving communities a direct say in research design, product introduction plans and policy engagement. Through Focus Group Discussions and CAB meetings, community and patient voices are shaping market assessments, research protocols, and advocacy activities for new diagnostics and treatments. Through media engagement, peer-learning opportunities, capacity-strengthening activities, and communications, WACI Health is working to build public awareness of pre-eclampsia and maternal anaemia and amplify the perspectives of affected communities.

WACI Health works to close the gap between global evidence on PPH and what is available to women in Africa. It leads country and regional advocacy for governments to adopt WHO-recommended medicines, heat-stable carbetocin (HSC) for prevention and tranexamic acid (TXA) for treatment, into national guidelines and Essential Medicines Lists. Working with Concept Foundation, it convenes regional and country workshops with ministries of health, professional associations and civil society to build the case for change, and draws on its civil society networks to support implementation. Combining technical and product expertise with national-level advocacy and civil society reach has driven policy change across the East African Community and ECOWAS regions since 2019.

WACI Health also brings community voice into clinical research. It sits on the community advisory board of REACH (Research to Expand Access to Heat-stable Carbetocin for the Treatment of Postpartum Haemorrhage), a trial on treating heavy bleeding after childbirth. It is also on the steering committee of PEARLS (Preventing pre-eclampsia: Evaluating AspiRin Low-dose regimens following risk Screening), which is testing how best to use low-dose aspirin to prevent preterm pre-eclampsia in women identified as at risk. These roles give civil society a meaningful voice in trial design, delivery and the eventual scale-up of new innovations.