Table 3.

A reflective summary of policy context in perinatal survival

Agenda setting	What is going on in policy discourse	Policy considerations (questions) to ask during future policy making
Prevention of stillbirths
Still not an agenda in policy making, low competing priority	Intention to begin to report stillbirths (occasional statements), but not yet focussed	• Is the technical/epidemiologic separation of stillbirths and newborn death having any social implications? Has this influenced realization of seeing mother and baby as a single unit in any way? Has it affected district/primary healthcare level, how? • Has perinatal survival been considered as an agenda of health promotion, and if so, what could that mean? • Have the policy approach/strategies been community based, empowering individuals and communities, or merely focussed on attempting to correct health behaviours? • Does policy community and implementing units need further realization that perinatal survival is not just a medical issue? • Have health systems (primary health care) been considered to leverage delivery of perinatal healthcare in developing countries? Or are the programmes being implemented just as vertically based technical packages?
Neonatal Survival
An agenda in policy, healthcare system, but pre-dominantly viewed as a vertical technical/medical initiative	Intention to integrate newborn in child and maternal health within health sector

Source: Authors’ analysis based on document review