Post-natal Maternal Health in Kenya

This project seeks to address a major gap in maternal health care in Kenya. 

In previous research, Professor Shane Doyle found that maternal health interventions in Kisumu, western Kenya, had focused predominantly on clinic-based ante-natal and delivery care in recent decades. As a result, state-run health facilities became overwhelmed, and patient:provider relations grew increasingly antagonistic. 

Maternity registers from a hospital in Kisumu county. Picture credit: Shane Doyle

These factors led to postnatal care becoming severely neglected, a situation which frequently ended tragically. A third of maternal deaths in this region are post-natal. Overall, the lifetime risk of maternal mortality is almost 300 times higher in Kisumu than western Europe.  

A maternity health education workshop in summer 2024. Image copyright KMET and used with permission

Funding from the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures and Research and Innovation Service in spring 2024 supported Professor Doyle’s engagement with health policy and practice in western Kenya. Working with medical providers and KMET, a Kisumu-based reproductive health NGO, this pilot programme has established community-based post-natal maternal healthcare provision in one of Kisumu’s sub-counties. The programme has trained Community Health Promoters in post-natal health promotion, monitoring, response, and referral, and then supported them in disseminating post-natal health information through community meetings to recently-delivered mothers. 

Professor Shane Doyle

The intervention’s success is being evaluated by analysing health outcomes data, and by surveying post-delivery mothers at inception and conclusion, measuring change in lay understanding of post-natal risks and responses. As Professor Doyle emphasises, the hope is that this programme will be rolled out across the region. ‘The long-term aim is to work with the region’s health planners, to develop a sustainable system of effective post-natal health provision in western Kenya.’