Safe Motherhood in Nepal

National Policy on Skilled Birth Attendants is supplementary to Safe Motherhood Policy 1998. The Government of Nepal (GoN) has a long history of commitment to improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes, most recently evidenced by the high priority given to the National Safe Motherhood Programme within the Nepal Health Sector Programme- Implementation Plan (NHSP-IP 2004-2009). Despite important gains over the past 15 years, the maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality rates remain high (539 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births1 and neonatal mortality rate of 39/1000 live births1), largely due to the lack of skilled attendance at birth, as well as poor referral systems and lack of access to life-saving emergency obstetric care when complications occur.

The government policy legalising safe abortion under specified conditions at listed sites

This revised National Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health Long Term Plan (NSMNH-LTP) 2006-2017 has been developed to be in line with the Second Long Term Plan Health Plan (1997-2017), the Nepal Health Sector Programme Implementation Plan and Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

The National Health Training Centre (NHTC) has produced a five-year Operational Plan for SBA training, with technical assistance from SSMP and IntraHealth. This document will form the basis of a strategically planned effort to provide need-based SBA training in line with the national SBA Policy (2006) and SBA in-service training strategy (2007), which aims to produce around 5,000 SBAs by 2012.