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Project Aisha
Project Aisha- Strengthening Systems for Safer Childbirth Initiative S3C is a three-year-long intervention funded by Merck for Mothers in Lagos and Kaduna, focused on ensuring challenged and mixed health systems improve quality of care and maternal and newborn health outcomes in Nigeria. S3C is a collective action to accelerate progress in ending preventable maternal deaths. The project will advance the objectives of improving the quality of care of maternal and child health outcomes by addressing the systemic drivers of maternal deaths and obstetric complications within the health system in Nigeria
Aisha means "Alive and Well". The project was named for the outcomes we are working towards in women and their newborns as we proceed in the communities and facilities we work with.
Ingress Health Partners is the community partner in the Project Aisha consortium. We are focused on the following interventions to drive down obstetric and perinatal deaths
1. Enhancing the practice of the Private Practice Nurse Midwife, the most highly skilled birth attendant in communities apart from Physicians.
2. Optimizing the capacity of the Traditional Birth Attendant to recognize danger signs and ensure timely complete referrals
3. Influencing the decisions of women to seek skilled care in the antenatal and peri natal period. Project Aisha has attained this by curating the role of the community based Maternal Health Influencers (MHIs) whose role is to influence the greatest influencers of healthcare decision making of pregnant women- their family members. In Lagos and Kaduna, the MHIs
Within the Project Aisha consortium, Ingress Health Partners is also providing Technical Support to the Lagos State Primary Healthcare Board in the roll out of Group Antenatal Care (GANC) services while supporting the GANC roll out in midwife-led facilities in the private sector as well as supporting the Kaduna state government in the development of a Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) policy.
 Introductory meeting Epe LGA |  Nurse-led facility in Ifako Ijaiye being assessed for eligibility for inclusion in Project Aisha in July 2023 |  Facility assessment in Ifako Ijaiye - mother being interviewed |  Community Enumeration in Lagos- part of baseline assessment |
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 Pre-Baseline interviews of Traditional Birth Attendants in Zaria, Kaduna |  Part of the pre baseline study of Traditional Birth Attendants in Zaria. |
Project Aisha commenced in November 2022 in Lagos and in June 2023 in Kaduna
Community Engagement - Kaduna and Lagos
Maternal Health Influencers conducting house-to-house Community sensitisation on Maternal Health at Anguwan Juma ward in Zaria LGA Kaduna
Training of Traditional Birth Attendants on Ethics in Practice
Referral Meetings
Maternal deaths occasioned by delayed referrals and poor referral patterns has also received attention through the work of the project Aisha team. Meetings were convened between Traditional Birth Attendants and the local public and private referral hospitals to jointly develop referral forms and a referral system that tracks patients from time and location of referral, to referral facilities, which confirms completion and conclusion of each referral. The focus is on emergent referrals to avoid maternal and newborn deaths and stillbirths.
Over four days, Midwives and their support staff from several private nurse-led facilities in Lagos were trained using role play, didactic lectures, hands on practical sessions, and simulated clinical scenarios on Group Antenatal Care, G-ANC.
Group ANC creates social networking opportunities with other pregnant women and applies positive peer pressure in helping women make health related decisions. Eight sessions are held in each pregnancy. The sessions focus on improving knowledge on danger signs in pregnancy, birth preparedness, labour, delivery and post partum outcomes of healthy pregnancy.
Group ANC has been successfully applied globally to reduce maternal deaths in high risk pregnant women. Sessions have commenced in earnest with two distinct cohorts, and early results indicate greater male involvement and increased patient satisfaction.
QI team members
Summarising the change ideas implemented
Change Idea presentation
QI team members