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Every Woman Every Newborn EverywherE
Healthy Futures

Country action

South Africa

© UNICEF/UNI646716/Ndzombane

Every Woman Every Newborn in South Africa

Download the full profile with additional key demographics, progress against milestones, and more.

This profile was developed in May 2023, using data from 2018-2023. 

Download the full South Africa profile

© UNICEF/UN0748889/Peens.  A baby is weighed at Grey Hospital in Qonce (formerly known as King William’s Town) in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa on 28 September 2022.

National mortality targets

Maternal
mortality ratio

100 per 100,000 live births
by 2024

Stillbirth
rate

No data

Neonatal mortality rate

12 per 1,000 live births
by 2024

Progress to meet the national maternal, newborn mortality and stillbirth reduction targets

© UNICEF/UN0692786/Moulton A mother holds her baby while a healthcare worker does a routine check up during on her baby at a clinic in Cape Town, South Africa, on 20 May 2022.

Progress to meet Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere coverage targets

MNH Acceleration Plan highlights

Some of South Africa’s MNH Acceleration Plan priorities include:

  • Improve demand generation and quality of antenatal care services through targeting the communities with low antenatal care coverage and offering basic antenatal care training to clinicians.
  • Support the roll-out of the new sexual and reproductive health policy targeting adolescent girls in and out of school to enhance their health seeking behaviours.
  • Conduct a profiling exercise on the needs of maternal, newborn and child health patients who have heightened vulnerability, special needs and require dedicated attention to optimal supportive care, with granular data for targeted interventions.
  • Leverage Ward-based Primary Healthcare Outreach Teams (WBPHCOTs) to improve coverage of antenatal and postnatal care and identify and refer vulnerable pregnant women.
  • Advocate for additional and ring-fenced budget for maternal and newborn health, e.g. conditional grant.
  • Develop essential and compulsory continuous professional development for the maternal health care workforce.
  • Adopt the new updated essential newborn care training tools.
  • Establish the mother-baby pair data systems.

© UNICEF/UNI321985/O’Doherty

On 9 April 2020 in South Africa, attending paediatrician Dr. Bopapa holds newborn boy Fionn at a hospital in Johannesburg. Chloe says ““Dr Bopape, the hospital’s pediatrician examining our
baby the day after his birth and showing us some burping techniques. His face still very swollen from a natural birth.”

© UNICEF/UNI321981/O’Doherty. On 13 April 2020 in South Africa, Ava plays with her mother Chloe’s hair as she breast feeds her newborn son at home in Johannesburg.

Quality of care in South Africa

As part of its efforts to reduce maternal and newborn mortality and stillbirths, South Africa is taking steps to improve the quality of maternal and newborn health. These include:

  • Reinforce and monitor basic antenatal care plus as a key quality standard.
  • Survey of neonatal service, infrastructure & repurposing.
  • Standardize the SA Initiative for Neonatal Care (SAINC), roll out newborn care assessments guidelines for all facilities.
  • Participate in the Global Evidence, Local Adaptation (GELA) project to enhance evidence-informed guideline recommendations for newborn and young child health.
  • Review the quality of care indicators.
  • Adapt the WHO core standards for pregnancy, delivery and newborn care.
  • Invest in equitably distributed, fit-for-purpose midwives and advanced midwives, in numbers and ratios suitable to the levels and context for quality of care.

News and events

Lessons to end postpartum hemorrhage

June 10, 2026

First webinar in a four-part series sharing lessons from the Accelerating Measurable Progress and Leveraging Investments for Postpartum Hemorrhage Impact (AMPLI-PPHI) project. Organized by Jhpiego.

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Resources

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