Multiple micronutrient supplements in pregnancy: implementation considerations for successful integration into existing programmes

In collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Micronutrient Initiative (MI)

Scope and purpose

The Evidence and Programme Guidance Unit, Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, World Health Organization, in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Micronutrient Initiative (MI), are convening the ‘Meeting: Multiple micronutrient supplements in pregnancy: implementation considerations for successful incorporation into existing programmes’ to examine the programmatic evidence, including successful implementation experiences, best practices and lessons learnt, in order to inform the scale-up of multiple-micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy in antenatal care programmes.

The outcome of this meeting will contribute to the Member States’ efforts to strengthen their health systems and provide them with a summary of lessons learnt and a summary of implementation considerations, which can be useful in the integration of this nutrition intervention in antenatal care programmes.

Objectives

The objectives of the meeting are threefold:

• To examine implementation experiences of micronutrient supplementation interventions in pregnant women, their lessons learnt and best practices;
• To discuss programmatic and technical considerations of interventions on multiple-micronutrient supplementation in pregnant women in high-, middle- and low-income countries;
• To identify the needed implementation considerations that can be useful to scaling up efforts by Member States considering multiple-micronutrient supplementation in pregnant women as part of existing antenatal care programmes as well as other delivery platforms.

The meeting will draw on background papers and case studies that will be commissioned through a public call for papers. The papers, along with feature presentations from the convening organizations, will be presented at a meeting to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on 18-20 August‎ 2015. The outcome of the meeting will be summarized for future publication.