9 June 2016
Access to water and sanitation during childbirth is poor across low and middle-income countries. Even when women travel to health facilities for childbirth, they are not guaranteed access to basic WATSAN infrastructure. Hygiene during childbirth is essential to the health of mothers and newborns, irrespective of where birth takes place. This paper investigates the status of water and sanitation in both the home and facility childbirth environments, and for whom and where this is a more significant problem.
9 June 2016
Peru is an upper-middle-income country with wide social and regional disparities. In recent years, sustained multi-sectoral antipoverty programmes involving governments, political parties, and civil society have included explicit health and nutrition goals and spending increased sharply. Countdown researchers did a country case study with the aim of documenting Peru’s progress in reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health from 2000–13, and explored the potential determinants. Peru has made substantial progress in reducing neonatal and under-5 mortality, and child stunting. This country is a good example of how a combination of political will, economic growth, broad societal participation, strategies focused on poor people, and increased spending in health and related sectors can achieve significant progress in reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health. The remaining challenges include continuing to address inequalities in wealth distribution, poverty, and access to basic services, especially in the Amazon and Andean rural areas.
Peru case study:
