After 20 years of contributing to the lives of pregnant women, newborn babies and infants; the South African Medical Research Council's (MRC’s) Maternal and Infant Health Care Strategies Unit will finally become a fully-fledged centre of the University of Pretoria (UP). A vision of Prof Robert Pattinson, the Research Centre for Maternal, Fetal, Newborn and Child Health Care Strategies at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology today boasts a treasure trove of experts and knowledge gathered since the unit’s inception in 1997.

The new Centre continues in the footsteps of the Maternal and Infant Health Care Strategies Unit, which has been a joint venture between UP and the MRC. Its goals echo those of Prof Robert Pattinson: to seek solutions to the primary and secondary health care levels that are saleable and sustainable.

“By seeking we mean performing research; by saleable we mean solutions that are acceptable to all, namely women, health care workers and health administrators; and by solutions, we mean health strategies that have been developed to solve the problems identified,” he says.

Hot on the heels of the Unit’s birth in 1997, the National Committee for Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths (NCCEMD) was established. Working in collaboration with the Unit, NCCEMD has tackled factors associated with maternal deaths by collecting data on the numbers, common causes and avoidable factors.

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