Ferring Pharmaceuticals and the NGO Maternity Foundation join hands to ensure safer childbirth in low- and middle-income countries
The global biopharmaceutical company, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, and the international NGO Maternity Foundation have entered a strategic partnership to pursue a joint, overall vision of ensuring safer birth for women in low-and middle-income countries.
A key focus of this partnership will be preventing and managing excessive bleeding after birth, one of the leading causes of all maternal deaths. Excessive bleeding after birth, known as postpartum haemorrhage (PPH), is associated with nearly one quarter of all maternal deaths globally and is the main cause of maternal mortality in most low-income countries[i].
Through the partnership, Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Maternity Foundation will update instructions and training materials for midwives on how to apply uterotonic medication needed to prevent PPH. The instructions and training materials will be made available within Maternity Foundation’s Safe Delivery App and the accompanying training programme. In addition, the partnership will raise awareness of maternal health and the importance of investing in midwifery skills and knowledge to improve the quality of maternal healthcare across the world.
The need for new partnerships and initiatives to advance maternal healthcare is underlined by the newest maternal mortality figures, showing that progress on reducing maternal deaths has stalled since 2015[ii]. Almost 300,000 women still die annually of causes related to pregnancy or childbirth[ii]. More than 90% of these deaths occur in low-resource and fragile settings[ii], but the majority can be prevented through quality care, including correct use of medication.
“To accelerate progress on reducing maternal deaths, we need to work together in new ways and across sectors. There is huge potential in combining the strengths of Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Maternity Foundation, and it is my hope that the partnership will pave the way forward and serve as an example of finding common ground between for-profit and non-profit sectors. Moreover, I hope and expect that the collaboration will help ensure safer birth for thousands of women in the years to come”, says Anna Frellsen, CEO Maternity Foundation.
The updated instructions and training materials on the Safe Delivery App will include information on how to apply various uterotonic drugs for the prevention of PPH, including Ferring’s heat-stable carbetocin. Heat-stable carbetocin can be stored at room temperature removing the challenge associated with current standard of care, which requires cold-chain storage[iii][iv]. Heat-stable carbetocin is included in the WHO Essential Medicines List of uterotonics[v].
“At Ferring Pharmaceuticals, we wish to raise awareness and ensure correct usage of uterotonic medication, including heat-stable carbetocin which can potentially save the lives of thousands of women during childbirth. Therefore, we are thrilled to enter into a partnership with Maternity Foundation, building on their global network of midwives to work together towards ensuring safer births”, says Dr. Kelle Moley, Vice President Reproductive Medicine and Maternal Health at Ferring Pharmaceuticals.
The partnership will build upon the Maternity Foundation’s innovative, impactful, and scalable digital learning tools and training methods as well as their global expertise and experience in supporting midwives in remote and low-resource settings. Through Maternity Foundation’s scalable approach, the organisation has reached more than 435,000 midwives and other maternal healthcare professionals in primarily Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, India and the Middle East.
About the Safe Delivery App
The Safe Delivery App is an evidence-based learning and training tool designed to support midwives, and other maternal healthcare professionals to assist during births and to manage the most common complications. Among other features, it contains the latest clinical guidelines, animated instruction videos, descriptions of practical procedures, and action cards. It is free and once downloaded on a smartphone or a tablet, it works offline, making it possible to be used even in the most remote areas.
The Safe Delivery App is developed by Maternity Foundation in collaboration with the Universities of Copenhagen and Southern Denmark and has been scaled up globally in close collaboration with UNFPA, among other key partners.
The App currently comes in 5 global versions based on WHO guidelines (English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese) and around 30 language versions, adapted to national contexts and needs. The updated instructions on applying uterotonic medication will firstly be made available with the global English version of the Safe Delivery App.
About Maternity Foundation
Maternity Foundation started out as a smaller Danish organisation in 2005 working in western Ethiopia. Today, Maternity Foundation has offices in Ethiopia, India, and Denmark and engagements in multiple countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, and Asia. With the recently launched Spanish Safe Delivery App version, Maternity Foundation has started to expand its work into Latin America and the Caribbean.
Maternity Foundation works to ensure safer births for women and newborns by building midwifery knowledge and skills among healthcare professionals in low-resource areas. It uses life-saving digital health solutions and innovative learning and training programmes.
About Ferring
Ferring Pharmaceuticals is a privately owned, research-driven, specialty biopharmaceutical group committed to building families and helping people live better lives. Through Ferring’s Project Family Safe Birth Commitment Ferring is working with partners, governments and stakeholders to make heat-stable carbetocin, for the prevention of PPH, available long term at a not-for-profit, affordable price to public and not-for-profit health facilities in L&LMICs.
Contact: Maternity Foundation: Helle Degn, Head of Communication: helle@maternity.dk
Photo: Stine Heilmann
[i] UNFPA. Making motherhood safer : UNFPA expands choices for maternal health: https://www.unfpa.org/updates/making-motherhood-safer-unfpa-expands-choices-maternal-health#:~:text=Globally%2C%20nearly%20one%20quarter%20of%20all%20maternal%20deaths,it%20is%20the%20main%20cause%20of%20maternal%20mortality. Accessed October 2024.
[ii] Trends in Maternal Mortality 2000-2020: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240068759
[iii] Product Information, Carbetocin Ferring sol for inj 100mcg/ml, Switzerland (January 2022)
[iv] Widmer M, et al. Room temperature stable carbetocin for the prevention of postpartum haemorrhage during the third stage of labour in women delivering vaginally: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials 2016;17(1):143.
[v] WHO. WHO Model List of Essential Medicines – 23rd list, 2023. Available at: https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/WHO-MHP-HPS-EML-2023.02 Accessed October 2024.
