Washington, September 2019-- In the province of Condorcanqui, in Peru's Amazonas Region, health personnel and community leaders of the Awahun indigenous people have come together to identify health needs and problems affecting access to maternal health services since 2016, thanks to the Integrated Health Systems for Latin America and the Caribbean (IHSLAC) project, supported by PAHO and Canada.
These communication and articulation meetings allow them to analyze causes, effects and interventions, such as the intercultural adequacy of maternal health services. WHO points to the importance of cultural factors in women's and families' decisions to use midwifery care.
The intercultural dialogues increased coverage of pregnant women accessing antenatal care in this community, which over the past three years increased from 58% to 76%. There was also an increase in rural institutional childbirth (51% to 62%) and a reduction in the number of maternal deaths (6 to 4).
[This is a best practice described in the side event held within the framework of the 57th PAHO Directing Counci].
