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At Maternity Worldwide we recognise the complexity and interlinking nature of the many different

factors which can prevent women and girls from being able to access high quality maternal and family

planning care. Our integrated maternal health approach draws on the Three Delays Model* which

recognises the different barriers women face in achieving the timely and effective medical care neededto prevent deaths occurring in pregnancy and childbirth.

The model identifies three groups of factors which may stop women and girls accessing the levels of

maternal health care which they need:

Phase 1: Delay in decision to seek care

Low status of women

Poor understanding of complications and risk factors in pregnancy and of when medical interventions

are needed

Previous poor experience of health care

Acceptance of maternal death

Financial implications

Phase 2: Delay in reaching care

Distance to health centres and hospitals

Availability of and cost of transportation

Poor roads

Geography e.g. mountainous terrain, rivers

Phase 3: Delay in receiving adequate health care

Poor facilities and lack of medical supplies

Inadequately trained and poorly motivated medical staff

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Inadequate referral systems

Maternity Worldwide has a rigorous needs assessment framework based on the Three Delays Model.

When we begin work in a new area or country we use this framework to identify which of these factors

are impacting on maternal mortality and maternal health.

Depending on local circumstances our approach will include several of the following elements:

Providing women with the opportunity to set up their own businesses, enabling them to increase their

financial independence and their status in the community.

Facilitating delivery of health promotion information in the community so that women and their

partners can identify warning signs for when they need to access different levels of maternal health

services. We provide family planning information so women can better space their pregnancies and

have control over the number of children they have.

Assessing transport issues and developing effective methods of ensuring that women can reach the level

of care they need to enable them to give birth safely.

Training doctors, nurses and midwives so that they can provide high quality, skilled maternal health care

in the community.

Providing support to upgrade health centre buildings and, where needed, medical equipment and

medicines.

We then work with local partners to develop and implement an effective and sustainable programme of

activities to address the barriers to accessing maternal health care. We use this as the basis for the

implementation of our integrated maternal health approach and for measuring the success of our work.

Our work empowers women so that they can exercise their own choices and enables them to access the

services they need to give birth safely

The emphasis of all our work is on engaging in genuine and lasting partnerships with local communities

to provide high quality and sustainable maternal health services which are universally and easily

accessible. Community involvement and engagement is central to our work. Maternity Worldwide is a

secular organisation and so has no religious affiliations. We recognise that faith based organisations

often play a leading role in providing health services particularly in the very poorest regions. We are

happy to work alongside any partners who share our values and vision.

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For all of our projects we begin by involving local communities and particularly seeking the views of the

women and girls who will be using the maternal health services. We work closely with key stakeholders

who may include local and central government, other charities and aid providers working in the locality

(including, faith based organisations) and other decision makers. From the beginning we engage keypartners through establishing an overall Steering Group to oversee the work and additional working

groups for specific activities e.g. Womens Income Generation Groups. This helps to increase the

capacity and skills of local partners so they can take over management of activities and ensure

sustainability of the work so that the lives of women and girls continue to be saved.

You can find out more about our projects here and read the stories of just some of the women who

have been able to give birth safely as a result of our work.