Our Programs
MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Guinea
India
Madagascar
Mali
Mozambique
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
| 2020-2025
This program, funded by USAID, supports country efforts to strengthen surgical safety within maternal health and voluntary family planning programs by promoting evidence-based approaches, testing new innovations, and scaling up proven practices.
The Lancet found that 4.8 billion people across the globe do not have access to surgery. Pregnant people who experience prolonged or obstructed labor and do not have access to surgical care are at an increased risk of obstetric fistula.
This program builds upon and expands our decades-long work and leadership in identifying and addressing the causes of obstetric fistulas through our Fistula Care and Fistula Care Plus programs. The program supports the expansion of high-quality fistula care, including addressing barriers to care and treatment created by a lack of knowledge and stigma about the condition, addressing the causes of fistula, and advancing global targets to end fistula by 2030. We also support surgical services for voluntary family planning (FP), including long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) and permanent methods (PMs).
EngenderHealth leads the MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics consortium and directly manages program activities in DRC, India, Guinea, Mozambique, and Nigeria, while IntraHealth International, one of our core implementing partners, manages program activities in Madagascar, Mali, Rwanda, and Senegal. Our other core implementing partners include Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Using the lens of safe surgery, we are generating evidence and scaling up proven practices to remove barriers to maternal healthcare. The program’s goal is to improve access to and quality of voluntary, informed, consented, and safe surgical care within maternal health and FP programs. We are particularly focusing on peripartum hysterectomy; prevention of unnecessary caesarean delivery; prevention and treatment of obstetric and iatrogenic fistula; and voluntary FP methods, including postpartum intrauterine device insertion and difficult contraceptive implant removal as well as vasectomy and post-caesarean delivery, postpartum, and interval tubal ligation.
MOMENTUM Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics program is part of the larger MOMENTUM initiative, which aims to accelerate reductions in maternal, newborn, and child mortality and morbidity in high-burden countries by increasing host country commitment and capacity to provide high-quality, integrated health care. To learn more, download the fact sheet.
