Project News

On 28th November 2021, ProNUT held a workshop with the relevant technical staff of the Ministry of Health (MOH) to discuss the contents of the Maternal and Child Health Hand Book (MCHHB).

JICA promotes the use of an MCHHB for maternal and child "Continuum of Care (CoC)", with a special focus on the "first 1000 days of life", where nutrition intervention is expected to be most effective. ProNUT project intends to develop an MCHHB based on the existing tools that have been in use in Mozambique, integrates the existing records and incorporates educational information on MCH and nutrition into one booklet. In Mozambique, there have been a Mother's Health Booklet that contains clinical records of five pregnancies/deliveries and a Child Health Card that records child growth monitoring and immunization. However, the Mother's Health Booklet introduced in 2012 has not been reprinted for a long time and two single sheets have been used to substitute the booklet: the antenatal care (ANC) sheet and the newborn evaluation sheet. All these records are separately managed.

The project aims to strengthen maternal and child nutrition services provided at health facilities and communities by utilizing the MCHHB in Gaza and Niassa provinces. ProNUT first developed a concept of the MCHHB through a series of discussions with the technical staff of the MOH departments - MCH, the Nutrition, and the National APE (community health worker) Program.

During this workshop, we had an active discussion on the contents to reflect the Mozambican context. Mrs. Amaike, a JICA MCH Expert, facilitated the discussion by sharing the draft version of the Maternal and Child Health Handbook. It was the first face-to-face workshop for the project after the long period of the COVID-19 restrictions. Our discussions to finalize the pilot version of the MCHHB will continue.

Discussion with technical staff of the MOH

Discussion with technical staff of the MOH

Amaike, MCH Expert, explaining the draft MCHHB