"I felt so small": A qualitative study of migrant nursing assistants' experiences in Norway.

BACKGROUND: In the wake of an increasingly ageing population, Norway has a growing need for healthcare workers, especially in nursing homes. This study explored the employment experiences of migrant nursing assistants working in elderly care in Norway. METHODS: A qualitative interview-based study was carried out between March and August 2020. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were performed with 13 purposively selected immigrant nursing assistants working in a nursing home within Western Norway. Data were thematically analysed. RESULTS: Migrant nursing assistants working in Norwegian elderly care faced mixed experiences. On the one hand, study participants experienced several barriers in their workplace, resulting from insufficient command of the Norwegian language, heavy workload and mistreatment and discrimination by both patients and colleagues. On the other hand, participants cited the financial compensation from work, the meaningfulness derived from helping others and the flexible day-off requests as workplace facilitators. Participants also made continuous efforts to learn the Norwegian language and to build good relations with their co-workers. CONCLUSION: There is a need to enhance migrant nursing assistants' positive experiences in the Norwegian eldercare sector by making targeted workplace reforms and fostering a supportive and inclusive environment.

Legal issues in the implementation of Maternal Death Surveillance and Response: a scoping review.

The Maternal Death Surveillance and Response (MDSR) system is designed to continuously identify and review all maternal deaths. It aims to help countries understand the scale and distribution of maternal deaths, identify their causes, and inform corrective measures to address the challenge. Despite the growing adoption of the MDSR by numerous low- or middle-income countries, its implementation faces various challenges, including legal ones. This scoping review was conducted to map legal issues and challenges that arise during the implementation of the MDSR. It adapted the Bain and Kongnyuy framework, categorizing legal issues into data, people, use of findings, and legal regulation. Literature was retrieved from seven databases, complemented by additional online searches. We included studies published in English between 2010 and November 2022 that report on legal issues arising during the implementation of MDSR. Out of 1174 studies screened, 31 were selected for review. The review highlighted the limited attention given to the legal dimension of the MDSR by the research community. It also documented the lack of adequate legal framework essential for the system's effective implementation. Inadequate safeguards for informational privacy and the lack of confidentiality reinforce a prevalent sense of being blamed, mainly among health workers. Consequently, widespread under-reporting and intentional misattribution of causes of maternal death, defensive referrals, and disengagement from the MDSR process were reported. We recommend that implementing countries regulate the gathering and use of MDSR data through appropriate laws and legally ensure that the MDSR data are only used for the intended purpose. Appropriate complaint-handling mechanisms are needed in health systems to prevent the misuse of the MDSR. Future studies on MDSR implementation would benefit from involving legal experts, considering the multifaceted legal dimensions of the MDSR.

Norms and sexual relations among adolescents in the context of an intervention trial in rural Zambia.

High levels of adolescent pregnancy and child marriage rates in low- and middle-income countries is an issue of concern to many stakeholders, including in Zambia where almost one-third of women give birth before age 18. The aim of this paper is to explore and analyse social norms concerning adolescents' sexual behaviour within the context of an intervention trial in rural communities in southern Zambia. It is based on a qualitative study applying individual interviews, focus group discussions and participatory research methods. We apply the distinction between injunctive and descriptive norms to demonstrate that adolescent girls are caught between conflicting norms. Injunctive norms express that premarital sex, contraceptive use, and discussions about sex between adults and youths are socially condemned. At the same time poor girls are reported to feel pressure towards having sexual relations for the economic benefits such relations can bring, and this practice is considered so common that it amounts to a descriptive norm. Norms and structural conditions combine to create a disabling and disempowering environment for adolescent sexual and reproductive health, which limits girls' agency and exposes them to unwanted pregnancies.

When abortion becomes public - Everyday politics of reproduction in rural Zambia.

This article takes the public reaction to the discovery of an aborted foetus in a rural Zambian community as the empirical starting point for exploring the everyday politics of reproduction. It builds on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork on abortion and abortion policy in Zambia in 2017 and 2018, including participant observation in the community where the episode took place and interviews with clinic staff and neighbours. The article explores local dynamics of abortion opposition in a country where abortion is legally permitted on broad grounds. By analysing this case as an anthropological event, it discusses how opposition to abortion is dynamic and changes depending on the situation at hand. While abortions that avoid public attention may be silently tolerated, abortions that become openly known are harshly condemned. Through scrutiny of a specific case of collective moral judgement of abortion, the article examines how values like responsible motherhood, sexual virtue and protection of life emerge and are shared, allowing participants to protect and accumulate their own integrity in a moral economy that forges stronger social ties within the community. The article argues that even the harshest expressions of opposition to abortion may not be as categorical as they first appear. It calls for increased attention to dynamics of moral and political opposition to abortion to understand what is socially at stake for those who engage in it.

Vanilla bisquits and lobola bridewealth: parallel discourses on early pregnancy and schooling in rural Zambia.

BACKGROUND: Adolescent pregnancy is a complex socio-economic phenomenon ranking high on the global health policy agenda. Early childbearing is associated with early marriage and school drop-out, and is defined as a problem to the health and development of girls. This paper reports from formative research. The formative research aimed to explore socio-cultural and structural dynamics at work behind early pregnancy and school drop out in rural Zambia. The study findings have been used to inform a school based intervention to reduce early pregnancy (RISE: 'Research Initiative to Support the Empowerment of Girls'). Theoretically the study is informed by social constructionism. METHODS: A qualitative approach was employed. Semi-structured qualitative interviews (61) and focus group discussions (7) were carried out with girls (in and out of school), boys, parents, teachers, health workers and community- and district leaders in 2014-15. Systematic text condensation was drawn upon in the analysis of the material. RESULTS: The study findings indicate that the official Zambian discourse that presents early pregnancy as a serious challenge and schooling as the prime way to confront the problem enjoy substantial support at community levels. However, a parallel discourse on fertility, early marriage and childbearing as social and economic security surfaced and was articulated by the same study participants. The latter contrasting discourse questioned schooling as the only solution to secure a girl's future arguing that there are many reasons why early pregnancy may emerge as rational. CONCLUSIONS: Grasping the complexity of local discourse is vital in planning health interventions. The present study revealed that although delayed child bearing and schooling among girls enjoyed high status and legitimacy in the study area, the social and economic context worked to reward early marriage. Interventions to reduce early pregnancies in rural Zambian communities need to fundamentally address the material constraints that condition and reinforce a culture of early childbearing.

'I wanted to go, but they said wait': Mothers' bargaining power and strategies in care-seeking for ill newborns in Ethiopia.

INTRODUCTION: To prevent the 2.6 million newborn deaths occurring worldwide every year, health system improvements and changes in care-taker behaviour are necessary. Mothers are commonly assumed to be of particular importance in care-seeking for ill babies; however, few studies have investigated their participation in these processes. This study explores mothers' roles in decision making and strategies in care-seeking for newborns falling ill in Ethiopia. METHODS: A qualitative study was conducted in Butajira, Ethiopia. Data were collected during the autumn of 2015 and comprised 41 interviews and seven focus group discussions. Participants included primary care-takers who had experienced recent newborn illness or death, health care workers and community members. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Choices about whether, where and how to seek care for ill newborns were made through cooperation and negotiation among household members. Mothers were considered the ones that initially identified or recognised illness, but their actual opportunities to seek care were bounded by structural and cultural constraints. Mothers' limited bargaining power, contained by financial resources and gendered decision making, shaped their roles in care-seeking. We identified three strategies mothers took on in decision making for newborn illness: (a) acceptance and adaptation (to the lack of options), (b) negotiation and avoidance of advice from others, and (c) active care-seeking and opposition against the husband's or community's advice. CONCLUSION: While the literature on newborn health and parenting emphasizes the key role of mothers in care-seeking, their actual opportunities to seek care are shaped by factors commonly beyond their control. Efforts to promote care-seeking for ill children should recognise that mothers' capabilities to make decisions are embedded in gendered social processes and financial power structures. Thus, policies should not only target individual mothers, but the wider decision making group, including the head of households and extended family.

Juridification of maternal deaths in Ethiopia: a study of the Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) system.

Juridification of maternal health care is on the rise globally, but little is known about its manifestations in resource constrained settings in sub-Saharan Africa. The Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response (MPDSR) system is implemented in Ethiopia to record and review all maternal and perinatal deaths, but underreporting of deaths remains a major implementation challenge. Fear of blame and malpractice litigation among health workers are important factors in underreporting, suggestive of an increased juridification of birth care. By taking MPDSR implementation as an entry point, this article aims to explore the manifestations of juridification of birth care in Ethiopia. Based on multi-sited fieldwork involving interviews, document analysis and observations at different levels of the Ethiopian health system, we explore responses to maternal deaths at various levels of the health system. We found an increasing public notion of maternal deaths being caused by malpractice, and a tendency to perceive the juridical system as the only channel to claim accountability for maternal deaths. Conflicts over legal responsibility for deaths influenced birth care provision. Both health workers and health bureaucrats strived to balance conflicting concerns related to the MPDSR system: reporting all deaths vs revealing failures in service provision. This dilemma encouraged the development of strategies to avoid personalized accountability for deaths. In this context, increased juridification impacted both care and reporting practices. Our study demonstrates the need to create a system that secures legal protection of health professionals reporting maternal deaths as prescribed and provides the public with mechanisms to claim accountability and high-quality birth care services.

Silent politics and unknown numbers: Rural health bureaucrats and Zambian abortion policy.

This article addresses the gaps between knowledge, policy and practice in reproductive health by exploring the processes involved in translating Zambian abortion policy from paperwork to practice in a predominantly rural province. Central to these processes are rural health bureaucrats, who are tasked with administering and monitoring a myriad of reproductive health policies and programmes. The articles is based on eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Zambia from September 2017 to August 2018, including in-depth interviews with rural health bureaucrats and participant observation in health management and policy meetings. It examines how health bureaucrats deal with the abortion-related challenges they face. Our findings reveal a complex landscape of reproductive health politics and moral double-binds and give insight into the gap between Zambia's seemingly liberal abortion policy and the lack of access to abortion services in rural areas. Despite the bureaucrats' knowledge about abortion policy, none of the hospitals in the study province offer legal abortion services. While many bureaucrats consider abortion to be a public health issue and see the need to offer legal services to abortion-seeking women, they often bypass abortion-related issues and treat them with silence in policy meetings and public settings. The silence corresponds with the lack of data on abortion and post-abortion care in district and provincial health offices and should be understood in relation to both the dominant moral regime of the Zambian state and global pressure towards specific reproductive health targets. This article calls for increased focus on politics and power dynamics in the state apparatus in order to understand the gaps between knowledge, policy and practice in sexual and reproductive health.

Reproductive health and the politics of abortion.

This editorial provides an overview of a thematic series that brings attention to the persistently deficient and unequal access to sexual and reproductive health services for young women in sub-Saharan Africa. It represents an effort to analyze the multifaceted relationship between laws, policies and access to services in Ethiopia, Zambia and Tanzania. Using a comparative perspective and qualitative research methodology, the papers presented in this issue explore legal, political and social factors and circumstances that condition access to sexual and reproductive health services within and across the three countries. Through these examples we show the often inconsistent and even paradoxical relationship between the formal law and practices on the ground. Particular emphasis is placed on safe abortion services as an intensely politicized issue in global sexual and reproductive health. In addition to the presentation of the individual papers, this editorial comments on the global politics of abortion which represents a critical context for the regional and local developments in sexual and reproductive health policy and care provision in general, and for the contentious issue of abortion in particular.

"The cord is the child": meanings and practices related to umbilical cord care in Central Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Infections account for a quarter of all newborn deaths and the umbilical cord has been identified as a major route of newborn infections. OBJECTIVE: To explore the meanings and practices related to the umbilical cord among caretakers of newborns in central Uganda. METHODS: This was a qualitative study, designed to inform the design, and interpretation of a randomized controlled trial assessing the effectiveness of chlorhexidine use for the umbilical cord. We conducted 22 in-depth interviews exploring umbilical cord care practices among ten mothers, four health workers, five traditional birth attendants, and three men. We also conducted three focus group discussions with young mothers and elderly women. We used qualitative content analysis to analyze our findings and we borrow upon Mary Douglas' concepts of dirt to present our findings. RESULTS: The umbilical cord had a symbolic position in newborn care. The way it was perceived and handled had far reaching consequences for the survival and wellbeing of the baby. The umbilical cord was a centre of anxiety, a possible gate to illness, a test of fatherhood and a signifier of parental responsibility. Hence, the umbilical cord and the way it was cared for played a part in the present and future survival of the baby, as well as the survival and wellbeing of the household. Persons other than the mother such as older female relatives were very influential in the care of the umbilical cord. CONCLUSIONS: The umbilical cord carried symbolic meanings, which extended beyond the newborn and the newborn period, and in turn influenced the various practices of umbilical cord care. The important position of the cord in local newborn care practices should be recognized and taken into consideration when scaling up newborn care interventions in the country.

The access paradox: abortion law, policy and practice in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia.

INTRODUCTION: Unsafe abortion is a major contributor to the continued high global maternal mortality and morbidity rates. Legal abortion frameworks and access to sexuality education and contraception have been pointed out as vital to reduce unsafe abortion rates. This paper explores the relationship between abortion law, policy and women's access to safe abortion services within the different legal and political contexts of Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia. The research is inspired by recent calls for contextualized policy research. METHODS: The research was based in Addis Ababa (Ethiopa), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Lusaka (Zambia) and had a qualitative exploratory research design. The project involved studying the three countries' abortion laws and policies. It moreover targeted formal organizations as implementers of policy as well as stakeholders in support of, or in opposition to the existing abortion laws. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with study participants (79) differently situated vis-à-vis abortion, exploring their views on abortion-related legal- and policy frames and their perceived implications for access. RESULTS: The abortion laws have been classified as 'liberal' in Zambia, 'semi-liberal' in Ethiopia and 'restrictive' in Tanzania, but what we encountered in the three study contexts was a seeming paradoxical relationship between national abortion laws, abortion policy and women's actual access to safe abortion services. The study findings moreover reveal that the texts that make up the three national abortion laws are highly ambiguous. The on-paper liberal Zambian and semi-liberal Ethiopian laws in no way ensure access, while the strict Tanzanian law is hardly sufficient to prevent young women from seeking and obtaining abortion. In line with Walt and Gilson's call to move beyond a narrow focus on the content of policy, our study demonstrates that the connection between law, health policy and access to health services is complex and critically dependent on the socio-economic and political context of implementation. CONCLUSIONS: Legal frameworks are vital instruments for securing the right to health, but broad contextualized studies rather than classifications of law along a liberal-restrictive continuum are demanded in order to enhance existing knowledge on access to safe abortion services in a given context.

Health, life and rights: a discourse analysis of a hybrid abortion regime in Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Unsafe abortion continues to be a major hazard for maternal health in Sub-Saharan Africa, where abortion remains highly controversial and access to safe abortion services is unequally distributed. Although national abortion laws are central in indicating women's potential for accessing safe abortion services, the character of an abortion law may alone say little about national discursive abortion landscapes and access scenarios. The article calls for the study and problematization of the relationship between legal abortion frameworks on the one hand, and discourses surrounding abortion on the other, in an attempt to move closer to an understanding of the complexity of factors that influence knowledge about and access to safer abortion services. With the restrictive abortion law in Tanzania as a starting point, the paper explores the ways in which the major global abortion discourses manifest themselves in the country and indicate potential implications of a hybrid abortion regime. METHODS: The study combined a review of major legal and policy documents on abortion, a review of publications on abortion in Tanzanian newspapers between 2000 and 2015 (300 articles), and 23 semi-structured qualitative interviews with representatives from central institutions and organizations engaged in policy- or practical work related to reproductive health. RESULTS: Tanzania's abortion law is highly restrictive, but the discursive abortion landscape is diverse and is made manifest through legal- and policy documents and legal- and policy related disputes. The discourses were characterized by diverse frames of reference based in religion, public health and in human rights-based values, and as such reflect the major global discourses. Fairclough's concepts interdiscursivity and recontextualization were drawn upon to develop an understanding of how the concepts health, rights and life emerge across the discourses, but are employed in contrasting lines of argumentation in struggles for hegemony and legitimacy. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The paper demonstrates that a hybrid discursive regime relating to abortion characterizes the legally restrictive abortion context of Tanzania. We argue that such a complex discursive landscape, which cuts across the restrictive - liberal divide, generates an environment that seems to open avenues for enhanced access to abortion related knowledge and services.

'An uneasy compromise': strategies and dilemmas in realizing a permissive abortion law in Ethiopia.

INTRODUCTION: At the turn of the century, when the Millennium Development Goals placed maternal mortality reduction high on the global agenda, Ethiopia relaxed its restrictive abortion law to expand grounds on which a woman could legally obtain an abortion. This radical policy shift took place within a context of predominant anti-abortion public opinion shaped by strong religious convictions. Drawing upon Walt and Gilson's policy analysis framework, this paper explores the tension between public policy and religious dogma for the strategies chosen by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and its partners implementing the new policy, and for access to safe abortion services. METHODS: The study employed a qualitative research methodology. It targeted organizations that are key stakeholders in the field of reproductive health. These included policy makers and policy implementers like ministries, UN agencies and international and national NGOs as well as religious organizations as key opinion leaders. The data collection took place in Addis Ababa between 2016 and 2018. A total of 26 interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using the principles of qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: Our analysis showed that the implementing organizations adopted a strategy of silence not to provoke anti-abortion sentiments and politicization of the abortion issue which was seen as a threat to the revised law and policy. This strategy has facilitated a rollout of services and has improved access to safe abortion care. Nevertheless informants were concerned that the silence strategy has prevented dissemination of knowledge about the revised law to the general public, to health workers and to the police. In turn this has caused confusion about eligibility to legal and safe abortion procedures. CONCLUSIONS: While silence as a strategy works to protect the law enhancing the health and survival of young women, it may at the same time prevent the law from being fully effective. As a long term strategy, silence fails to expand awareness and access to safe abortion services, and may not sufficiently serve to fulfill the potential of the law to prevent abortion related maternal deaths.

Why teach sexuality education in school? Teacher discretion in implementing comprehensive sexuality education in rural Zambia.

BACKGROUND: Reproductive health problems such as HIV, unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion among adolescents are closely linked to insufficient knowledge about sexuality and reproduction and lack of access to contraceptives. Supported by international agencies, Zambia has introduced an ambitious nation-wide program for comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) to be implemented into ordinary school activities by teachers. The curriculum is firmly based in a discourse of sexual and reproductive rights, not commonly found in the public debate on sexuality in Zambia. This paper explores how teachers perceive the curriculum and practice discretion when implementing the CSE in mid-level schools in Nyimba district in Zambia. METHODS: Using a case study design, data were collected through in-depth interviews with 18 teachers and analyzed thematically drawing upon theories of discretion and policy implementation. RESULTS: Individual teachers make decisions on their own regarding what and when to teach CSE. This discretion implies holding back information from the learners, teaching abstinence as the only way of preventing pregnancy or cancelling sexuality education sessions altogether. Teachers' choices about the CSE program were linked to lack of guidance on teaching of the curriculum, especially with regards to how to integrate sexuality education into existing subjects. Limited prioritization of CSE in the educational sector was observed. The incompatibility of CSE with local norms and understandings about adolescent sexuality combined with teacher-parent role dilemmas emerged as problematic in implementing the policy. Limited ownership of the new curriculum further undermined teachers' motivation to actively include CSE in daily teaching activities. Use of discretion has resulted in arbitrary teaching thus affecting the acquisition of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health knowledge among learners. CONCLUSION: The CSE had limited legitimacy in the community and was met with resistance from teachers tasked with its' implementation. In order to enhance ownership to the CSE program, local concerns about the contents of the curriculum and the parent-teacher role dilemma must be taken into consideration. Not addressing these challenges may undermine the policy's intention of increasing knowledge about sexuality and reproduction and empowering adolescents to access contraceptive services and avoid unwanted pregnancies.

'Maternal deaths should simply be 0': politicization of maternal death reporting and review processes in Ethiopia.

The Maternal Death Surveillance and Response system (MDSR) was implemented in Ethiopia in 2013 to record and review maternal deaths. The overall aim of the system is to identify and address gaps in order to prevent future death but, to date, around 10% of the expected number of deaths are reported. This article examines practices and reasoning involved in maternal death reporting and review practices in Ethiopia, building on the concept of 'practical norms'. The study is based on multi-sited fieldwork at different levels of the Ethiopian health system including interviews, document analysis and observations, and has documented the politicized nature of MDSR implementation. Death reporting and review are challenged by the fact that maternal mortality is a main indicator of health system performance. Health workers and bureaucrats strive to balance conflicting demands when implementing the MDSR system: to report all deaths; to deliver perceived success in maternal mortality reduction by reporting as few deaths as possible; and to avoid personalized accountability for deaths. Fear of personal and political accountability for maternal deaths strongly influences not only reporting practices but also the care given in the study sites. Health workers report maternal deaths in ways that minimize their number and deflect responsibility for adverse outcomes. They attribute deaths to community and infrastructural factors, which are often beyond their control. The practical norms of how health workers report deaths perpetuate a skewed way of seeing problems and solutions in maternal health. On the basis of our findings, we argue that closer attention to the broader political context is needed to understand the implementation of MDSR and other surveillance systems.

The challenge of community engagement and informed consent in rural Zambia: an example from a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: There is a need for empirically based research on social and ethical challenges related to informed consent processes, particularly in studies focusing on adolescent sexual and reproductive health. In a pilot study of a school-based pregnancy prevention intervention in rural Zambia, the majority of the guardians who were asked to consent to their daughters' participation, refused. In this paper we explore the reasons behind the low participation in the pilot with particular attention to challenges related to the community engagement and informed consent process. METHODS: The pilot was implemented in two schools and examined the acceptability of a package of interventions including economic support to families to keep their girls in school, pocket money for girls, youth club meetings on reproductive health, and community meetings to sensitize the community. Focus group discussions (4) were conducted with girls who participated in the pilot, boys in their class and with parents. Individual semi-structured interviews (11) were conducted with teachers, peer educators and community health workers involved in the coordination of the intervention as well as with religious and traditional leaders. Data were analyzed through thematic analysis. RESULTS: The findings indicate that inadequate use of recognized community communication channels during the community engagement process and dissemination of information about the pilot resulted in limited understanding of the pilot concept by the community. This surfaced through uncertainty and fear that the intervention may result in loss of control over daughters, worries about why money was provided unconditionally to girls, and suspicion of links to satanism. The sense of insecurity appeared to be exacerbated by low literacy levels, poverty, fear of loss of bride wealth, perceived disregard for local perceptions of social status, and scanty trust in the actors implementing the pilot. CONCLUSIONS: Inadequate use of locally appropriate channels in the dissemination of information created room for interpretation and facilitated development of mistrust, undermining the conditions for community engagement and actual informed consent. A key lesson learnt is the importance of taking seriously the complexity of local values and structures that may impact people's capability to consent or not consent to a study in an informed manner.

Shaping the abortion policy - competing discourses on the Zambian termination of pregnancy act.

INTRODUCTION: The Zambian Termination of Pregnancy Act permits abortion on socio-economic grounds, but access to safe abortion services is limited and this constitutes a considerable problem for rights to sexual and reproductive health. The case of Zambia provides an opportunity to explore the relationship between a legal framework that permits abortion on diverse grounds, the moral and political disputes around abortion and access to sexual and reproductive health services. METHODS: This paper draws upon eleven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Zambia. The fieldwork included 28 open-ended interviews with key stakeholders as well as the collection of archival material related to the origins of Zambia's legal framework for abortion. The archival material and the interview data were analyzed thematically, using theoretical perspectives on discourse and the anthropology of policies. RESULTS: The study findings show that the Zambian case is not easily placed into standard categories of liberal or restrictive abortion laws. The archival material reveals that restrictive elements were in focus when the Zambian Termination of Pregnancy Act was passed (1972). The restrictive aspects of the law were emphasized further when Zambia was later declared as a Christian nation. Some of these restrictive elements are still readily recognized in today's abortion debate. Currently there are multiple opinions on whether Zambian abortion policy is liberal, restrictive or neither. The law emerges as ambiguous, and this ambiguity is actively used by both those working to increase access to safe and legal abortion services, and those who work to limit such access. Coupled with a lack of knowledge about the law, its ambiguity may work to reduce access to safe abortion services on the grounds permitted by the law. CONCLUSIONS: We argue that the Zambian Termination of Pregnancy Act is ambiguous and leaves much room for interpretation. This paper challenges the notion that the Zambian abortion law is liberal and opens up for further discussion on the relationship between how a law is described and perceived by the public, and the rights to health and services ensured by it.

"We shall count it as a part of kyogero": acceptability and considerations for scale up of single dose chlorhexidine for umbilical cord care in Central Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Cleansing the umbilical cord with chlorhexidine reduces neonatal morbidity and mortality, particularly in communities where newborn deaths and home births are common. As a result, the World Health Organization and national authorities are advocating the scale up of this intervention. In order for such a scale up to be effective, it has to be acceptable to the targeted population. With the overall aim to clarify conditions for scale-up, this study explored the acceptability of single dose chlorhexidine solution for umbilical cord care among health workers and infant care providers in the districts of Kampala and Mukono in Central Uganda. METHODS: This was a qualitative study that involved mothers of neonates enrolled in a chlorhexidine trial, nurses implementing the trial, key community members and opinion leaders in childcare. We conducted 30 in depth interviews (IDIs) with mothers (18), health workers (8), traditional birth attendants (2), a father (1) and a grandmother (1) and 4 focus group discussions (FGDs), 3 with mothers and 1 with health workers. We used qualitative content analysis to analyze our findings and borrow upon Sekhon's model when presenting our findings. RESULTS: Cognitive and emotional responses to chlorhexidine use included ease of use, and a perception that chlorhexidine reduced smell and abdominal colic. We also found that wider social and cultural factors were important to chlorhexidine use. These included cultural value put on quick separation of the umbilical cord as well as the practice of bathing the baby in a herbal mixture called kyogero. We also found that older relatives were key decision makers in umbilical cord care for newborns, but were seldom present during health workers' counseling of mothers about hygienic care of the cord. CONCLUSIONS: The application of chlorhexidine on the umbilical cord stump at birth was acceptable as an addition rather than a total replacement of traditional substances. The scale up of chlorhexidine should consider how to accommodate local beliefs and practices in a way that does not compromise the effect of the intervention; encouraging mothers to delay the bathing of babies in kyogero could be one way of doing this.

Policy, paperwork and 'postographs': Global indicators and maternity care documentation in rural Burkina Faso.

Targets and indicators set at the global level are powerful tools that govern health systems in low-income countries. Skilled birth attendance at a health facility is an important indicator for monitoring maternal mortality reduction worldwide. This paper examines how health workers negotiate policy implementation through the translation of clinical care into registries and reports. It does so by analysing the links between the global policy of institutional births and the role of documentation in the provision of birth care in primary health centres in Burkina Faso. Observations of health workers' practices in four primary maternity units (one urban, one semi-urban and two rural) conducted over a 12-week period in 2011-2012 are analysed alongside 14 in-depth interviews with midwives and other health workers. The findings uncover the magnitude of reporting demands that health workers experience and the pressure placed on them to provide the 'right' results, in line with global policy objectives. The paper describes the way in which they document inaccurate accounts, for example by completing the labour surveillance tool partograph after birth, thus transforming it into a 'postograph', to adhere to the expectations of health district officers. We argue that the drive for the 'right' numbers might encourage inaccurate reporting practices and it can feed into policies that are incapable of addressing the realities experienced by frontline health workers and patients. The focus on producing indicators of good care can divert attention from actual care, with profound implications for accountability at the health centre level.