The compendium supports efforts to end mistreatment and achieve respectful maternal and newborn care. It is published by WHO together with UNFPA, UNICEF and the United Nations’ Special Programme on Human Reproduction (HRP), with support from Jhpiego and the MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership programme. 

The purpose of the compendium is to consolidate key evidence, tools and resources to support the practical implementation of respectful maternal and newborn care across different contexts. It provides programme managers with essential background to build a foundational understanding of mistreatment and respectful care. As such, it serves as a comprehensive resource that integrates theory with practice.

Since 2010, countries supported by the Maternal and Newborn Health Fund have reduced maternal mortality by 40%, nearly twice the global rate, contributing to avert an estimated 75,000 maternal deaths. The Maternal and Newborn Health Fund is UNFPA’s flagship initiative to expand equitable access to quality reproductive, maternal, and newborn healthcare.

The Fund’s Annual Impact Report 2024, released this month, details significant progress in reducing maternal and newborn mortality in 32 priority countries. In particular, the report highlights the impact of training and deploying midwives, enhancing emergency obstetric and newborn care, supporting national maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response systems and providing surgical fistula repair.

Download the report

The World Health Organization maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health e-handbook is a new resource for Ministry of health programme managers. It offers  step-by-step guidance for implementing effective health programmes, from planning to monitoring and evaluation, with concise overviews of key activities and interventions along the life course.  The e-handbook references WHO documents, to ensure that programme managers have access to evidence-based strategies and best practices tailored to various contexts.

This e-handbook contains a prioritised list of documents; for a full list of documents go to the resource library for maternal, newborn, child, adolescent health and ageing: https://uhcc.who.int/mca/

A new journal supplement, “Born Too Soon: progress, priorities and pivots for preterm birth,” led by PMNCH, was published in BMC Reproductive Health last month. The supplement adapts and expands the content from the 2023 WHO report “Born Too Soon: A Decade of Action on Preterm Birth.”

Globally, a baby is born preterm every two seconds, and a preterm newborn dies every 40 seconds, making preterm birth the leading cause of under-five deaths.

Authors highlight the progress made in the last decade, outline the need for improved data to enhance programs, and emphasize the necessity for comprehensive, high-quality, and respectful sexual, reproductive, and maternal health services.  They call for investments in small and sick newborn care to ensure equitable access, particularly in conflict areas and among marginalized populations.  For the first time, this supplement also focuses on human rights law and global health processes and their role in upholding the rights of women, babies, parents, families, and healthcare providers.

Read more

Download the supplement

The 2025 edition of the State of the world’s nursing provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the nursing workforce. The report features new indicators on critical areas for nursing, such as education capacity, advanced practice nursing and remuneration, policy priorities and a compilation of data from each WHO region.

Country profiles reflect each country’s national data and are available for download from the WHO National Health Workforce Accounts data portal.

Read more and download the report

Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere and Child Survival Action joint messages on the impact of ODA cuts on maternal, newborn and child health. Prepared for the 78th World Health Assembly, in May 2025.

Investing in midwives is a cost-effective and sustainable strategy to improve maternal and newborn health and well-being and reduce mortality. There is ample evidence to show that care provided by midwives is women centric, significantly advances maternal and newborn health outcomes, strengthens health systems, and helps build future healthier generations.

The Midwifery Accelerator: Expanding Quality Care for Women and Newborns —developed in consultation with governments, global experts, UN agencies, civil society, and providers—calls on governments, funders and other stakeholders to invest in midwifery care to save and transform the lives of women and their newborns around the world.

Download the Midwifery Accelerator

See also:

• The Global Position Paper on Transitioning to Midwifery Models of Care.
• The Midwifery Implementation Guidance 

This report presents internationally comparable global-, regional- and country-level estimates and trends for maternal mortality between 2000 and 2023. A total of 195 countries and territories met the criteria to be included the data analyses and in the results presented in this report. This is the second report to present estimates and trends for maternal mortality for years that fall within the SDG reporting period, covering the first eight years of the 15-year period, from the start of 2016 until the end of 2023.