ACEPHAP convened Stakeholders to Strengthen Emergency Maternal and Newborn Care in Nigeria
Every minute matters when a mother or newborn needs emergency care. The ability of health workers to respond quickly, confidently and as a coordinated team can make a critical difference in the outcome of an emergency. Recognising the importance of strengthening this response, the African Centre of Excellence for Population Health and Policy (ACEPHAP) convened a 3-Day TEAM-OB/NEO Training Curriculum and Package Development Workshop in Abuja to support a more harmonised approach to emergency maternal and newborn care in Nigeria.
The workshop brought together government stakeholders at federal and state levels, professional and regulatory councils, implementing organisations and technical partners to collectively shape the next phase of emergency obstetric and newborn care training in the country.
The engagement was part of the TEAM-OB/NEO consortium project, led by ACEPHAP and TAConnect, with support from partners including CHAI, SCIDaR, HSDF, PROMPT and Laerdal. It provided a platform for stakeholders to bring together existing evidence-based training approaches and clinical innovations, including PROMPT, SBBC, E-MOTIVE, ELSS, LSS, BEmONC, CEmONC and BORN-aligned newborn simulation content.
At the heart of the workshop was the development of a coherent, competency-based TEAM-OB/NEO training package that could support health workers across different levels of care. Participants worked collaboratively to harmonise training curricula and materials, emergency response sequences, practical drill pathways, simulation scenarios, competency assessments, OSCEs, knowledge assessments and job aids.
The discussions also extended beyond what was taught in the classroom. Stakeholders explored how training could translate into sustained improvements in practice through multidisciplinary teamwork, simulation-based learning, mentorship, supportive supervision, competency assessment and continuous skills reinforcement at facility level.
By bringing diverse expertise and existing approaches to one platform, the workshop contributed to efforts to reduce fragmentation and promote greater consistency in how emergency maternal and newborn care skills are taught, assessed and reinforced across Nigeria.
Through TEAM-OB/NEO, stakeholders took an important step towards a more integrated and sustainable approach to emergency maternal and newborn care, with a shared goal of ensuring that health workers were better prepared to respond when every second counted.
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