Transforming Maternal and Newborn Health: The Safer Births Bundle of Care

The Safer Births Bundle of Care Programme ("Safer Births"), led by Haydom Lutheran Hospital ("Haydom") in Tanzania, has shown extraordinary results, reducing maternal deaths by up to 50% and neonatal deaths by up to 45% in areas of implementation.

This remarkable result and its mandate to save lives at birth has put Safer Births in the global spotlight.  It is Haydom`s largest research initiative and was developed in collaboration with Laerdal Global Health and funded by the World Bank.  

Haydom serves over 900,000 people in its immediate area and 5.7 million in its greater reference area. 

Norwegian Church Aid has a long-standing partnership with HLH, located in Manyara, one of Tanzania's poorer regions. With Norad funding, NCA has provided core support to Haydom over the past years helping to build a sustainable organisation, professionalise its Board, strengthen financial and procurement systems, and enhance advocacy, networking, and fundraising capacities. NCA`s current grant focuses on making Haydom financially sustainable and reducing donor dependency, a result we aspire to see across all our work.

Tanzania is one of the many countries struggling to reduce their maternal mortality with a rate with 556 per 100,000 meaning that 12,000 women dying in relation to pregnancy and childbirth annually. 

These are often preventable deaths, and the government has urged women to give birth in health facilities.  

However, as the number of women giving birth in facilities is increasing, the quality of care has not improved and studies show that deaths, including neonatal deaths, occur due to inadequate quality of care and facilities. Safer Births addresses the low competency level enabling health systems to safeguard uncomplicated births and provide emergency obstetric newborn care when needed.

Safer Births is a result of 10 years of multidisciplinary collaboration among 12 international institutions from in and outside Tanzania, including around 100 researchers, research staff and engineers. Many of the researchers are based in Tanzania who will play an integral role in supporting the scaling up of Safer Births throughout Tanzania.  

All innovations and interventions created as part of Safer Births have proven to be effective, efficient and lifesaving and staff at 142 health facilities across Tanzania have so far been trained.

NCA`s Senior Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Advisor, Haldis Kårstad remarks:

“From the first time NCA started its collaboration with Leardal Global Health in 2012 in DRC, I fell in love with their simulation models used for training nurses and midwives in Safer Births, and we have used them in different settings since.  The results we are now seeing with Safer Birth project in Tanzania is even more than I ever expected." 

In case the results sound too good to be true, almost 60 published papers have confirmed Safer Births impact in high-impact peer reviewed international journals.

In a recent interview, Norad Director, Bård Vegar Solhjell chose to highlight Safer Births as one of five key examples of global progress in 2024. 

Now it is time for the success to expand outside of Tanzania.

In December 2024, NCA landed a contract with Norad to start Safer Births in Borno State, Nigeria. 

The expansion of Safer Births to Nigeria marks a significant step forward in the fight to improve maternal and newborn health, demonstrating the power of innovative, collaborative approaches to save lives, and build stronger health systems. 

Borno state faces some of the highest maternal and newborn mortality rates globally which are exacerbated by ongoing conflict and weakened health care system.   NCA believes that Safer Births will significantly reduce these statistics, as seen in Tanzania. 

“I am proud of the staff at Haydom, with their dedication and professionalism. I am so happy that they are now partnering with NCA on the new project in Nigeria,” Haldis Kårstad says.