This formative research study was carried out to understand community perspectives towards maternal and child nutrition health and illness and generate demand for MMS through tailored programming and social marketing. 

This study aimed to assess the ethnomedical perspectives toward maternal and child nutritional health and illness and marketing of Multiple Micronutrient Supplements in the Mbeya region in Tanzania. The findings revealed inadequate knowledge and perception regarding diseases facing pregnant women, foods eaten and demonstrated several negative norms underlying foods and diseases during pregnancy. Also, low use of IFAS was mainly related to offal smell and metallic taste. Extensive education and awareness creation should be targeted towards pregnant mothers and communities to improve their knowledge about foods and diseases associated with pregnancy. Besides, the production of new MMS or IFAS, the manufacturer should consider improving its taste and smell. Promotion should consider the selected names, slogans and logos provided.

This report presents formative findings in support of the government of Madagascar and in-country partners to introduce multiple-micronutrient supplements (MMS) during a pilot trial to be implemented in Itasy and Vatovavy Fitovinany, Madagascar. 

In a view to strengthen maternal nutrition services, including the use of prenatal multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS) through the public health antenatal care (ANC) platform in Bangladesh, a demonstration program will be implemented in two districts of Bangladesh. UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have partnered with several different organizations, including the Government of Bangladesh, Sight & Life, Pennsylvania State University, and International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) to conduct a formative research study with the overall objective of developing improved ANC services with expanded coverage and provision of MMS. The study findings reflect women’s preferences that should be considered while designing tailored social and behavioral strategies to increase coverage of ANC services and improved MMS acceptability and compliance in Bhola and Kurigram, Bangladesh. 

This document aims to provide guidance to country-level decision-makers who are interested in introducing Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) for pregnant women in Ante-natal Care (ANC) programs. The guidance provided here is contextualized to the 2020 update to the WHO antenatal care recommendations for a positive pregnancy experience. Nutritional interventions update: Multiple micronutrient supplements during pregnancy.

This document aims to provide guidance to country-level decision-makers who are interested in introducing Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) for pregnant women in Ante-natal Care (ANC) programs. The guidance provided here is contextualized to the 2020 update to the WHO antenatal care recommendations for a positive pregnancy experience. Nutritional interventions update: Multiple micronutrient supplements during pregnancy.

This document aims to provide guidance to country-level decision-makers who are interested in introducing Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) for pregnant women in Ante-natal Care (ANC) programs. The guidance provided here is contextualized to the 2020 update to the WHO antenatal care recommendations for a positive pregnancy experience. Nutritional interventions update: Multiple micronutrient supplements during pregnancy.

This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted very carefully in order to give up the pooled compliance of Iron and Folic-Acid Supplementation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Twenty-three studies, which encompassed 24272 pregnant women, were chosen for the analysis. From those, an overall prevalence of compliance with Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (IFAS) in pregnancy in SSA was 39.2%. However, the result from the meta-analysis showed that women who were counseled on IFAS in their courses of pregnancy, who had knowledge of IFAS, knowledge of anemia, and women who had received a fourth visit for antenatal care (ANC) were more likely to have compliance with IFAS as compared to those who did not.

Adherence to iron and folic acid (IFA) supplementation during the antenatal period is paramount to reducing anemia and its associated morbidities. Although several studies have been conducted across Ethiopia, their reports were inconsistent and inconclusive for intervention. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis estimated the pooled national level adherence to IFA supplementation and its determinants among pregnant women in Ethiopia. Twenty studies with a total of 16,818 pregnant women were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled national level iron and folic acid supplementation’s adherence was 46.15%.

The objective of this study was to identify where, within antenatal care (ANC) programmes, pregnant women falter in obtaining and consuming an ideal minimum of 180 iron-folic acid (IFA) tablets. Data from Demographic and Health Surveys were used to develop a schematic that identified four sequential ‘falter points’ to consuming 180 IFA tablets: ANC attendance, IFA receipt or purchase, IFA consumption and the number of tablets consumed. The analysis identified where ANC-based distribution of IFA falters in each of the 22 countries examined.