Postnatal care with a focus on home visitation: A design decision-aid for policymakers and program managers.

Over the period since 2008 considerable attention has been given to testing community-based strategies involving postnatal home visitation (PNHV) in low-income high newborn-mortality country settings. A number of countries have made efforts to implement such programs at scale and lessons are now accruing on these program experiences. However also over this period many countries (including those that have implemented PNHV programs) have seen marked increases in facility births and there is now increasing attention to improving the quality of facility-based care. There is therefore a need at this time to review programmatic strategies addressing postnatal care (PNC) in light of both what has been learned from evidence and experience to date and the evolving situation on the ground. The current document is intended to pull together practical insights from such evidence and experience and to support ministries of health and their partners who are developing programs and services that aim to improve health outcomes in the postnatal period for newborns and their mothers. (Excerpts)