Cervical Cancer Terms | General Family Planning Terms | Learning and Training Terms | Performance Improvement Terms | 

Maternal and Neonatal Health Terms

Antenatal

The time period from conception until the onset of labor, about 40 weeks.

 

Antepartum

Before delivery.

 

Behavior Change

A nonlinear process which includes several intermediate steps through which people move before they change their behavior. These steps include knowledge, approval, intention, practice and advocacy.

 

Behavior Change Communication (BCC)

Designed to achieve measurable objectives, reach and involve specific audiences and position health practices persuasively as a benefit in the minds of the intended audience. People at different stages in the behavior change process may constitute distinct audiences and require different messages and different approaches, whether interpersonal communication, mass media or community mobilization. The key program elements of BCC are audience participation, recognition of behavior change as both a social and individual process, use of mass and multimedia and development of entertainment for education purposes.

 

Campaign

A set of organized activities, directed at a particular audience for a specific period of time to achieve a particular goal. Communication campaigns often use mediated message as part of or all of their organized activities.

 

Coalition

An action-oriented group of individuals and/or organization working together in a coordinated fashion toward a common goal.

 

Community

A geographic locale or a group of people working toward a common issue. 

• Geographic locale: A place or small geographic area; a group of people sharing some interest; or a social network of relationships at a local level. 
• Common issue: Boundaried social or demographic unit involving a neighborhood or people who share a common issue or interest. Communities are not homogeneous, but are inclusive, complex, dynamic and multidimensional.

Community Mobilization

A process of problem identification and problem solving stimulated by a community itself or facilitated by others that involved local institutions, local leaders, community groups and members of the community.

 

Direct Maternal Deaths

Deaths resulting from obstetric complications of pregnancy, labor and puerperium and from interventions or any after effects of these events (e.g., postpartum hemorrhage). See also Maternal Mortality.

 

Emergency Obstetric Care

The minimum amount of interventions needed to appropriately manage obstetrical complications. This includes surgical obstetrics, anesthesia, medical treatment of shock, eclampsia and anemia, blood replacement, manual procedures and assisted delivery.

 

Essential Obstetric Care (EOC)

The minimum amount of interventions to promote a healthy pregnancy and birth outcome including antenatal care, birth planning, ensuring delivery with a skilled attendant, proper referral and management of obstetrical complications and postpartum monitoring and care.

 

Indirect Maternal Deaths

Deaths resulting from the worsening of existing conditions by pregnancy or delivery (e.g., malaria, diabetes).

 

Intrapartum

During delivery.

 

Live birth

The complete delivery or removal of a fetus, regardless of the duration of the pregnancy, that breathes or shows other signs of life.

 

Maternal Morbidity

Any symptom or condition resulting from or worsened by pregnancy.

 

Maternal Mortality

The death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days after pregnancy, regardless of the duration and site of pregnancy (uterine or extra-uterine), from any cause related to or made worse by the pregnancy or its management.

 

Maternal Mortality Rate

The number of women who die, from any causes related to or worsened by pregnancy, while pregnant or within the first 42 days after pregnancy per a chosen number of women of reproductive age in a given year.

 

Maternal Mortality Ratio

The number of women who die, from any causes related to or worsened by pregnancy, while pregnant or within the first 42 days after pregnancy per a chosen number of live births in the identified population in a given year.

 

Neonate

A baby from birth through the first 7 days of life. 

 

Newborn

A baby from birth through the first 28 days of life.

 

Partograph

A record of all of the observations made of a woman in labor. The central feature of the record is a graph for plotting cervical dilatation.

 

Postpartum

After delivery.

 

Stillbirth

The delivery or removal of a fetus that did not show any signs of life. 

Go to Glossary