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PMTCT Resources
Mothers2Mothers – Additional Information
HORIZONS PROJECT
Evaluation of mothers2mothers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
In order to meet the information and emotional support needs of HIV-infected pregnant and postpartum women and improve utilization of prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services in South Africa, the mothers2mothers (m2m) program was introduced in the Western Cape in 2001 and is now being rolled out in KwaZulu-Natal. mothers2mothers is an innovative, community-based education, empowerment, and mentoring program for HIV-positive pregnant women and new mothers that aims to enhance public-sector PMTCT programs. The program trains and employs new mothers to become “mentor mothers” who offer psychological, emotional, and social support to other HIV-positive women through one-on-one and support group sessions in antenatal care and maternal and child health care clinical settings. The program focuses on women from pregnancy through the first year of their children’s lives.
http://www.popcouncil.org/horizons/projects/SouthAfrica_Mothers2Mothers.htm
Each month, more babies are born with HIV in one clinic in Africa than in one year in the United States, Canada and England combined. This is because treatment to prevent the infection of newborns in the developed world has become as simple as a single dose of medicine for the mother and her newborn.
While these same clinical solutions are now available in Africa, their impact and effectiveness for HIV-positive mothers is less successful without complementary social, emotional and psychological support. mothers2mothers (m2m) helps save these children and their mothers by offering essential support.
m2m offers an effective, sustainable model of care that provides education and support for pregnant women and new mothers living with HIV/AIDS.
Founded by Dr. Mitchell Besser in 2001, mothers2mothers has developed from a single support group in Cape Town to a multinational NGO in just over four years.
Besser, a gynecologist who was working with at-risk pregnant women in both California and South Africa, served as a consultant for the clinical roll-out of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT). While working at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, he realised that even when medical treatment was available to these women, it was often less than effective because of social, emotional and psychological barriers to success. To help break through those barriers, Besser enlisted other new mothers living openly with HIV/AIDS who, as Mentor Mothers, began to connect with and educate their pregnant peers. The result of these efforts is m2m today.
In the years since Besser's first efforts, the growth of the program has been nothing short of extraordinary. The m2m model has become something of a touchstone for PMTCT services, frequently cited as a leading model by international health care heads. In addition, it has captured the attention of major funding partners like PEPFAR and NPI, the Starr Foundation, Wallace Foundation, EGPAF, Waterfront Rotary to well-known figures such as fashion designer and AMFAR chair Kenneth Cole, rock star Bono and senior elected officials from across the political spectrum.
Our Structure and Staff
At the heart of mothers2mothers is our local program staff. In satellite offices throughout South Africa and Lesotho and soon to be Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia, m2m employs experienced health care professionals as Program Managers to oversee program sites based in individual health care facilities.
Each of those sites is headed by a full-time Site Coordinator, usually a mother who has come through the program herself and who has since been trained by m2m to provide PMTCT care and support. These women are our line managers, responsible for supervising the delivery of care provided by Mentor Mothers, who are our ground troops and our first line of care.
The programs are based on the concept that peer support is the optimal model for effective education and social empowerment. The best vehicles for this support are the mothers themselves. Thus, our staff is made up of women from local communities who are either infected with or affected by HIV. This team of approximately 400 women forms the foundation and spirit of m2m.
m2m currently operates in 89 sites in 4 provinces across South Africa, and 10 sites in Lesotho in addition to international efforts in Ethiopia and Botswana. Expansion into Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia is scheduled to take place throughout 2007.
All m2m activity is overseen by our head office in Cape Town, which houses management and key support staff, as well as the regional staff for the Western Cape.
Mothers Creations
Mothers’ Creations was started in 2002 and is an income generation project of mothers2mothers. Mothers’ Creations empowers women participating in m2m by encouraging them to become economically independent. New mothers living with HIV, many of whom are the sole providers for their families, are trained in beading skills and design to produce high quality beadwork, which is marketed all around the world. Mothers Creations buys the beaded items from the women and then markets the items to vendors all over the world.
The m2m National Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) Helpline has opened.
Dial 0800 MOTHERS (668 4377) to speak to a m2m PMTCT Phone Counsellor or to receive recorded HIV/AIDS maternal health information.
Operating hours are between 18:00 - Midnight, Monday to Friday
International callers wishing to access the helpline can call +27 21 441 1017. Normal call rates will apply.
South Africa’s first ever National PMTCT (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission) Hotline is now up and running, made possible by an exciting initiative between SA’s second most watched television program Soul City and mothers2mothers, an education, psychosocial mentoring and support organization for HIV positive women.
It's medically quite simple to prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies, which is why pediatric AIDS has virtually been eliminated in developed countries, and yet more children are born with HIV in an African clinic in a month than in the US, Canada and England combined in a year!
Even though treatment is increasingly available in large parts of Africa, most HIV+ pregnant women still fail to avail themselves of the simple treatment that could keep their babies from contracting the virus that causes AIDS. In South Africa, where 35% of pregnant women are HIV+, and 70-80% of pregnant women could have access to this treatment, only 20% of them take advantage of it.
Why is this? Lack of knowledge – people simply don't know it's available, or that it is effective. They believe that if they test HIV+, it's a death sentence for themselves and their babies. Fear is also a key factor, which comes from lack of support and education: Women are so afraid of the implications of revealing their HIV status that they wind up living with risk and denial rather than taking the few simple steps that could protect their babies' health.
mothers2mothers, an education, psychosocial mentoring and support organization. m2m identifies and trains HIV positive mothers who have recently gone through Prevention of Mother to Child (PMTCT) programs and return them to clinics and maternity wards as Mentor Mothers. Mentor Mothers educate expecting and new HIV-positive mothers, supporting them as they confront decisions that mean the difference between their and their babies’ illness and health. m2m educates and empowers women to face their illness and save their babies.
m2m decided to partner with one of SA's most watched Television programs, Soul City, to get the word out. Soul City’s story line includes one of their lead characters, Connie, an openly HIV+ woman played by an openly HIV+ actress, who joins m2m as a mentor mother. Through this story line, m2m is able to disseminate the truth about PMTCT to a much larger audience.
At the end of the show Soul City broadcasts m2m's PMTCT help line (0800-MOTHERS). And unlike typical AIDS hotlines, it is staffed by our own m2m mentor mothers, women who themselves are HIV+, have been through the PMTCT process and had healthy HIV negative babies.
HIV+ women from the townships, who once thought their lives were over after being diagnosed with HIV, are now our front-line staff in a multi-media, hi-tech effort to reach other women like themselves.
http://www.m2m.org/
Despite good intentions and commitment from providers, prevention-of-mother-to-child-transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services can be difficult for pregnant women to access, despite the provision of free health services for women and children.
We examined the introduction of PMTCT services in a very poor rural area of the Eastern Cape, South Africa, to assess the context's impact on the provision of this service. Our approach involved 13 individual in-depth interviews and 26 focus group discussions, spread over six clinics in a single district, supplemented by situational observations. Our goal was to suggest how access to PMTCT services at the clinics may be improved. Poor roads, an underdeveloped transport system and poor telecommunications typify the pervasive poverty in the study area. Families have few resources for travel and most live a long distance from a clinic. Accessing emergency transport is especially difficult and expensive. Poor infrastructure also means that many families do not have access to clean water, which complicates the use of infant formula. PMTCT services had been recently added to several clinics that provide general services to the local population, but that were already understaffed and over-pressured. Since the PMTCT services were new, some elements of the intervention and staff training were delayed, thus inhibiting full implementation. New staff had not been added to ease accumulated pressures. Thus, socio-economic context can present a formidable barrier to the provision of PMTCT services. Improvement in services to rural areas will require creative thinking, perhaps including the use of mobile services and the evelopment of community structures, such as contributions to community health education by traditional birth attendants and local volunteer groups. (2005)
http://www.hsrc.ac.za/Research_Publication-5682.phtml
South Africa’s AIDS epidemic is one of the worst in the world. It is a generalized epidemic, affecting all segments of society.In 2005, the Human Sciences Research Council released updated information on HIV prevalence and HIV-related risk behaviors. Of the study population, 10.8 percent were HIV-positive.
The Mothers to Mothers-to-Be program empowers women in the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) by providing psychosocial support, promoting women’s economic independence, reducing stigma, and promoting disclosure in families and communities.
1 UNAIDS, Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, 2006.
2 Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behaviour and Communications Survey, 2005.
3 UNAIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update, 2006
http://www.pepfar.gov/press/81640.htm
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