RAHMY: Respectful Abuse-free Humanized Motherhood through Youth-Empowerment

This project explores Shared Decision Making (SDM) as a tool to improve Respectful Maternal Care (RMC) for young mothers during and beyond COVID-19. Despite being one of the least disrupted essential services during the pandemic, the quality of Respectful Maternal Care (RMC) has been significantly threatened, highlighting the need for extensive research in this area.

The Respectful Abuse-free Humanized Motherhood through Youth-Empowerment (RAHMY) project adopts an intersectional approach. Its goal is to develop a versatile tool that can be easily adapted and applied in similar contexts within developing countries. These countries are striving to offer respectful and inclusive care for young mothers. RAHMY explores Shared Decision Making (SDM) as a fundamental aspect of Respectful Maternal Care (RMC). It aims to empower various decision-makers with patient-centered care principles and provide guidance to health workers on best practices. This approach aims to enhance the quality of patient-centered Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) services for young mothers both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

RAHMY created three knowledge products, all of which can be found and downloaded on the YourEgyptianDoula website.

They created:

1) an advocacy/educational video regarding the process and benefits of SDM, published in Arabic with English subtitles:

2) Online (and printable) bilingual fact sheets (social media posts) targeting the same video audience: young mothers, their partners, families (other decision-makers), and maternal health workers on SDM for RMC and PCC

3) A brief highlighting the latest evidence on obstetric violence (OV,) RMC, PCC (Patient-centered Care) in SRHR, narratives of main target groups, and tiered recommendations, ranging from quick-wins to multi-sectoral and systemic interventions, to improve RMC and PCC policy and practice.

Please visit their website to learn more!