The ‘Missed Opportunities in Maternal and Infant Health’ (MOMI) project focuses on postpartum health care delivery for mothers and newborns in four sub-Saharan countries (Burkina Faso, Kenya, Malawi and Mozambique) throughout the first year after childbirth. MOMI will highlight two particular aspects of health care delivery: facility-based care with a focus on child health clinics and community-based care using community health workers. Improving maternal and newborn health requires innovative approaches that maximize opportunities for impact throughout the continuum of care. In the past decade, maternal health services have largely focused on the management of intrapartum complications and on rationalizing the package of antenatal services to include emergency obstetric care provided by skilled birth attendants. These interventions have sought to target what are widely considered to be the most common and immediate causes of maternal death.

Yet this approach fails to address many underlying morbidities that are instrumental in generating high rates of maternal mortality, such as anaemia and inadequate birth spacing. Also missing is a direct focus on the substantial proportion of maternal deaths in the postpartum. Indeed, as a component of maternal health, postpartum care has been neglected, along with thewhole field of newborn health in Africa. The essential package and optimum structure of postpartum services for women and newborns in Africa remains poorly defined, with many missed opportunities for improved care. It are these ‘missed opportunities’ that will be addressed by MOMI.