FRONTIERS PROJECT
Scaling Up the India Men in Maternity (MiM) Intervention in Delhi

FRONTIERS worked with the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) to expand the pilot Men in Maternity (MiM) intervention (see "Involving Men in Their Partners’ Antenatal and Postpartum Care") to 10 of 34 dispensaries (including three of the original pilot dispensaries) in Delhi. The scale-up entailed training the staff of participating facilities to conduct maternity counseling for pregnant women and their husbands, provide counseling for men on reproductive health and prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and routinely test for syphilis.

Over the course of the project a total of 120 doctors and nurse-midwives received training on working with husbands, although because of staff changes, only 58 are still available to conduct these activities. Syphilis screening was integrated into the activities of seven dispensaries, but in the other three clinics, problems with staffing or equipment impeded the integration. The practice of inviting men’s participation in their wives’ maternal care was routinely carried out, but husbands were seldom available during their wives’ antenatal care consultations. Few husbands were routinely counseled on prevention of STIs, mainly because there were few male doctors or doctors willing to do the counseling, or because of insufficient private space in which to carry out the counseling. More complete scale-up of the MiM model will require a commitment from ESIC to ensure supervision and monitoring of the model’s implementation and full integration into maternal care services.

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Location

Delhi, India

Duration

April 2003–February 2006

Population Council researchers

M.E. Khan, Leila Caleb Varkey

Non-Council collaborator

Employees’ State Insurance Corporation

Donor

US Agency for International Development

Publications/Resources
Council researchers' names appear in boldface type. 

2008
Varkey, Leila Caleb, Anurag Mishra, and M.E. Khan. “Creating the conditions for scale-up of the Men in Maternity intervention in India,” FRONTIERS Final Report. Washington, DC: Population Council. (PDF, 473 KB)

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Related Projects

• India: Involving Men in Their Partners' Antenatal and Postpartum Care
• South Africa: Involving Men in Their Partners’ Antenatal and Postpartum Care

See Also

• India
• Men and Reproductive Health
• Men and Male Roles
• FRONTIERS India
• FRONTIERS Male Involvement

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