As part of its ongoing commitment to strengthening primary healthcare systems and improving maternal and newborn outcomes, TAConnect supported the 2025 National Safe Motherhood Day press briefing held on April 16, 2025, in Abuja. The event served as an important platform for renewed national dialogue and accountability around maternal and newborn health (MNH) in Nigeria.
Safe Motherhood Day, marked annually from April 11, aims to drive awareness, inspire innovation, and mobilize multi-sectoral action toward ending preventable maternal and neonatal deaths. This year’s theme, “Innovating for Safer Birth: A Collective Responsibility to Crash Maternal Mortality,” emphasized the urgent need for shared responsibility across all levels of society—government, development partners, healthcare providers, and communities alike.
At the high-level press briefing, the Honourable Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, described Safe Motherhood not just as a health agenda but as a moral imperative and a national priority. “No woman should die giving life, and no child should be born into preventable suffering,”. Echoing the day’s slogan, “Care for Moms, Hope for the Babies,” he urged stakeholders to collaborate in transforming childbirth experiences and outcomes in Nigeria.
TAConnect’s support for the event is aligned with its strategic focus on catalyzing technical assistance to state health systems, particularly around Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health, and Nutrition (RMNCAEH+N) services. By supporting the press briefing, TAConnect reinforced its role in driving advocacy, visibility, and momentum for MNH interventions nationwide.
The briefing also saw the official launch of several key national documents, including:
- The Safe Motherhood Strategy (2024–2028): A roadmap for coordinated, multi-level interventions to protect mothers’ lives.
- Guidelines for the Management of Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH): To standardize
- lifesaving practices nationwide.
- Preeclampsia and Eclampsia Guidelines: Targeted strategies for timely detection and effective management of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy.
- Essential Gynaecological Skills Manuals: To enhance the competencies of health workers managing women’s reproductive health.
- The RMNCAEH+N Quality of Care Strategy: A framework to ensure respectful, rights-based, and high-quality care for women, newborns, children, adolescents, and the elderly.
- National Training Manual for Doctors and Nurses on the Management of Obstetric Fistula: A globally aligned, user-friendly manual designed to equip doctors with the tools to provide holistic, respectful, affordable, and evidence-based care that improves the quality of life for women and girls living with genital fistula.
The Minister spotlighted ongoing government efforts under the Health Sector Renewal Initiative, including the expansion of skilled birth attendance, the scaling up of free Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (CEmONC), and the implementation of free fistula programs in 15 facilities. These milestones reflect Nigeria’s unwavering drive to reverse the country’s high maternal mortality ratio and safeguard the health of every mother and child.
As TAConnect continues to support government at both national and subnational levels in delivering targeted solutions to improve health outcomes for women and children, events like Safe Motherhood Day underscores the need for collective and sustained efforts to build resilient, people-centred health systems.
“Together, we will build a Nigeria where motherhood is a celebration, not a risk,” the Minister affirmed.
TAConnect will continue to collaborate with federal and state governments, implementing partners, and communities to ensure that no woman dies giving life and that every child is born into safety and hope.
