Respectful maternity care and the role of male partners in Mozambique

Respectful maternity care and the role of male partners in Mozambique

On September 3 Anna Galle successfully defended her PhD, ‘Respectful maternity care and the role of male partners in Mozambique: practices, obstacles and conceptualisation’, supervised by Olivier Degomme, Kristien Roelens, Nafissa Osman and Sally Griffin.

Maternal health is a constant concern in Mozambique, as the nation’s maternal mortality rate is still one of the highest in the world.

On a more positive note, significant progress has been made in the country in encouraging women to deliver in health facilities. In line with global strategies, efforts in Mozambique have largely focused on increasing antenatal care (ANC) coverage and facility-based childbirth, together with improving access to family planning services. More recently however, maternal health efforts are shifting from an emphasis on boosting service utilization to improving quality of care. In addition, men’s important role in improving maternal health care utilization has been receiving more attention over the last decade, in the belief that male involvement in maternal health can contribute to the reduction of maternal and infant mortality (Full text: https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8718749).

The public defence took place with people following in person in Ghent and people following online from various countries over the world (United Kingdom, Germany, Mozambique, Sweden...). The defence was followed by a dinner, a most welcome real-life celebration after all those months of virtual meetings.