The MCHIP Pregnancy Wheel allows providers to easily calculate the gestational age of the clients they care for in the antenatal period, and also acts as a job aid. Because this wheel is larger than previous versions, providers can determine at a glance the counseling and evidence-based interventions that should occur at each visit, helping to ensure a healthy outcome for the mother and her baby. This wheel is for the African context.

The compendium is designed to assist program designers working for nongovernmental organizations to develop high-quality programs focused on women and children, to select the essential components and actions for their chosen interventions, and to select appropriate indicators. The tool addresses the temporal phases of a woman’s reproductive cycle from the household level to secondary care in facilities: pre-conception/ inter-conception, antenatal, labor and delivery, postpartum care, and newborn care.

31 January 2012 Voahangy had just given birth to her second child, but the bleeding would not stop. Luckily she had chosen to have her baby girl at the busy private health facility run by nuns in Mahajanga, in North Western Madagascar, where an average of 4–5 babies are born per day. Even more fortunate, the nun who assisted her during the birth, Sister Lydie, was a seasoned midwife who had just attended an MCHIP training covering how to help women who experience complications during childbirth.

The R-HFA was originally designed for use by nongovernmental organizations within the Child Survival and Health Grants Program, but as the Malaria Booster Initiative experience has shown, it is also suitable for use by District Health Management Teams. It is a relatively rapid instrument for measuring a small set of key indicators to give a “balanced scorecard” for maternal, newborn and child health services at the primary health care level (including an optional module for use with community health workers for community outreach services).