title: Respectful maternal and newborn care: building a common agenda.
abstract: In September, the World Health Organization released a statement on preventing and eliminating disrespect and abuse during facility-based childbirth. In addition to this important agenda, attention is also needed for the dignified care of newborns, who also deserve basic human rights and dignified care. In this commentary, we provide examples from the literature and other sources of where respectful care for newborns has been lacking and we give examples of opportunities for integration of maternal and newborn health care going forward. We illustrate the need for respectful treatment and consideration across the continuum of care: for mothers, stillbirths, and all newborns, including those born too soon and those who die in infancy. We explain the need to document cases of neglect and abuse, count all births and deaths, and to include newborns and stillbirths in the respectful care agenda and the post-2015 global reproductive care frameworks.
authors.affiliation: Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe St, E8011, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA. esacks@jhu.edu.|USAID Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP)/ICF International, Washington, DC, USA. esacks@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sacks
authors.affiliation: Save the Children, Saving Newborn Lives, 102 Louis Thibault Drive, Edgemead, 7441, South Africa. mkinney@savechildren.org.
authors.forename: Mary V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Kinney
mesh_terms: D036861:Delivery, Obstetric; D014943:Global Health; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008427:Maternal Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D050497:Stillbirth; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires