Below are the citation and extracts of a new editorial in the WHO Bulletin.
CITATION: Mercedes Bonet, Maria Barreix, Shuchita Gupta, Tigest Tamrat, Özge Tunçalp & Anayda Portela Efforts to implement WHO recommendations on antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care
doi: 10.2471/BLT.25.294453
Bull World Health Organ. 2025 Sep 1;103(9):518–518A. doi: 10.2471/BLT.25.294453
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12399990/
EXTRACTS
The World Health Organization (WHO) continuously updates and publishes recommendations for improving maternal and newborn care... Yet, implementation remains uneven. In many settings, demand for and coverage of high-quality antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care remains low, and recommended practices are not consistently reflected in local guidelines and clinical practice. In response to country requests for technical and implementation support, WHO has developed a suite of implementation tools to bridge this gap. These tools support translation of global recommendations into context-appropriate policies, guidelines, programmes and practices.
Two WHO toolkits... were co-developed with stakeholders from policy, programme, clinical and implementation backgrounds at global, regional and country levels. The toolkits orient users through a participatory, stepwise process to identify national or subnational adaptation needs and implementation enablers and barriers, and to select and implement priority actions to improve the demand, uptake and provision of high-quality maternal and newborn health services. Each toolkit includes a user guide with structured steps, and for each step a set of resources to complete baseline assessments and identify obstacles and enablers, summaries of evidence, case examples and recommended indicators aligned with global monitoring frameworks...
COMMENT (NPW): The toolkits can be downloaded here:
1. Toolkit for adaptation of the WHO recommendations for a positive pregnancy and postnatal experience https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/381021
2. Toolkit for implementation of the WHO intrapartum care and immediate postnatal care recommendations in health-care facilities https://iris.who.int/handle/10665/373263
Arguably, WHO is uniquely positioned (or, at least, one of very few organisations that are so positioned) to develop robust and reliable international health guidance, including guidance on how countries can adapt and apply such guidance. In terms of WHO's special strengths, it could be argued that such publications are at the heart of WHO's remit, whereas some other publications could be developed by other organisations.
What do you think?
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org