Soroptimist International’s Programme Director, Reilly Dempsey, is attending the 10th World Congress on Maternal and Neonatal Health in Rome. The congress opened yesterday. Here is her report from the first half day of events, seminars and debate:

The focus of the first half day of the conference was maternal
and infant care in poor resource settings. 

Interestingly, although the topics presented were extremely
varied, one underlying theme emerged in nearly all of the talks.  Maternal and infant care in resource rich
countries improved dramatically in the first half of the 20^th
century.  Resource poor countries
significantly lag behind.  But the
question we were faced with at the turn of the century was whether what worked
in resource rich countries would, at bottom, work in resource poor countries?  Were the risks the same?  Would the same interventions work?  What did the evidence say?

Although the contexts can be dramatically varied, it also
seems that emerging research and evidence is showing that the same scientific
and medical interventions which decreased maternal, neonatal, and child
mortality in resource rich countries can indeed work in resource poor
countries.  Here are some examples:

1. Anaemia in pregnant women and children under
   five is considered to be a public health crisis in many countries.  It was the same with sickle cell anaemia in
   the US back in the 1970s, but, driven by the civil rights movement (it was seen
   as a “black” disease), effective and fairly cheap solutions were developed
   which had a dramatic effect – screening, vaccinations, and antibiotics (in
   short, non-medical terms!).  Research is
   now showing that the same interventions are having a positive effect in some
   countries in Africa.
2. Sub-Saharan Africa, as a whole, has an extremely
   low physician to population ratio, just 13/100,000 compared to countries such
   as India (60/100,000), Brazil (192/100,000) and the United States
   (280/100,000). Individual countries on the continent have physician to
   population ratios as low as 1-2/100,000. 
   A fascinating project called the Sub-Saharan African Medical Schools
   Study (SAMSS – http://samss.org/), is
   connecting African experts to international experts to improve medical schools
   and training facilities for African healthcare professionals, using many of the
   same principles of training used in resource rich settings (.  The Matres Mundi project (http://www.matres-mundi.org) is also
   based on such collaborations and learning.
3. The EMERGENCY project (http://www.emergency.it/who-we-are.html),
   working in many resource poor settings, brings health care models from resource
   rich/developed countries into developing countries.  The results have been incredibly
   positive.  They believe in a new idea of
   sustainability – one where they don’t come into a country, work for 2-3 years,
   then leave, but one built on long term investment and dedication, including
   direct management, long term investment in training on the job, and supervision
   by international professionals. 
4. The PROMPT project (PRactical Obstetric
   Multi-Professional Training http://www.prompt-course.org/)
   is a course which was originally designed and carried out in the UK to ensure
   that health care professionals were appropriately trained in handling obstetric
   emergencies.  Although the course is
   tailored to different settings, the basic principles remain the same and it has
   now been implemented in USA, Italy, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand,
   Singapore, Fiji, Cook Islands, and others, and is about to be rolled out in
   Zimbabwe.  The PROMPT course is also the
   basis of the course Soroptimist International is supporting for clinicians in
   Papua New Guinea with Birthing in the Pacific. 

This theme of tailoring interventions from resource rich settings
to resource poor settings is one that deserves thought and attention.  We will see if it echoes throughout the rest
of the congress.

We also heard keynote lectures from Kara Britt on the
relationship between ovulation cycles and reproductive cancers and from Giuseppe
Benagiano on striking the balance (at population level) between overpopulation
(i.e. don’t reproduce) and ageing societies (i.e. do reproduce).

There were many thought provoking talks and presentations, and we’re
only through 1/5 of the congress!

More reports to follow throughout the week!