A multi-partner public-private initiative to reduce maternal and newborn deaths, implemented as a roughly five-year program across four districts each in Zambia and Uganda beginning in the early 2010s. Saving Mothers, Giving Life took a district-level systems approach built around the concept of three delays, the delays women face in deciding to seek care, reaching a facility, and receiving adequate care once there, and its interventions included safe motherhood messaging, birth preparedness counseling, clean delivery kits and transportation vouchers alongside broader health-system strengthening. Over the initiative's life, Zambia's participating districts saw maternal mortality ratios fall by 41 percent and facility case fatality rates drop from 3.1 to 2.0 percent, alongside a marked rise in the share of births taking place in health facilities.
Facts
Sponsoring BodyThe national Governments of Uganda and Zambia, with local district governments and international partners 1 Target PopulationWomen during labor, delivery and the immediate postpartum period, and their newborns, in high maternal mortality districts 1 Health GoalTo reduce maternal mortality rapidly in high mortality settings through community and facility evidence based interventions and district wide health systems strengthening. 1 Geographic ScopeZambia (4 pilot districts), implemented jointly with Uganda 1 Measured ResultsA Year 1 evaluation found the maternal mortality ratio in health facilities declined by 35 percent in Zambia, from 310 to 202 per 100,000 live births. 1 Classification
Program KindHealth Education Program 1 Connections
Delivers Practice
Entity-backed identity for the program-kind enum value this public health program already carries, resolved to a health practice by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The program-kind fact itself stays on the program unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Africa, found in there.
Sources
1. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth: Rapid reduction of maternal mortality in Uganda and Zambia through SMGL
BMC Pregnancy and ChildbirthArticle, Background section
In collaboration with the governments of Uganda and Zambia, SMGL has introduced in 2012 a wide range of interventions in communities and health facilities (public and private) in 4 pilot districts in each country.
Article abstract, Background
Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) is a multi-partner initiative designed to reduce maternal mortality rapidly in high mortality settings through community and facility evidence-based interventions and district-wide health systems strengthening that could reduce delays to appropriate obstetric care.
Article, Introduction section
SMGL is based on a health district-strengthening model that is planned and carried out in close collaboration with the national Governments of Uganda and Zambia and with local governments in SMGL districts.
Article, Background section on the Three Delays
It promotes and closely monitors evidence-based interventions in facilities around the time of labor, delivery and immediately postpartum, when earlier studies estimate that most maternal deaths and about half of newborn deaths occur.
Article abstract, Results section
The MMR in health facilities declined by 35% in each country (from 534 to 345 in Uganda and from 310 to 202 in Zambia).
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