The World Health Organization’s new Consolidated Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of PPH, were launched at FIGO.
This landmark declaration galvanised an African-led movement to end PPH — still the single largest direct cause of maternal deaths worldwide, accounting for up to 40 to 50 per cent of such deaths in countries like Kenya.
The declaration was the centrepiece of a session headlined by Prof Moses Obimbo, the Project Lead of the End PPH Initiative, whose keynote, “End PPH – Moving Beyond Guidelines for Impact in Advancing Women’s Health,” outlined a new roadmap.
The plan, developed by the Postpartum Haemorrhage Foundation in collaboration with the Kenya Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society (KOGS), the University of Nairobi (UoN), and the Midwives Association of Kenya (MAK), aims to drastically cut PPH-related deaths.
Over 6,000 delegates, including top government officials and global health leaders, attended the session.
Dr Kireki Omanwa, President of KOGS, underscored Kenya’s central role in this global shift. “Maternal mortality issues, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, have been brought squarely to the table. The Kenyan Ministry of Health and the government in general have taken note. PPH was made and is our business henceforth. We must endeavour to eliminate this blot from our society,” he said.
The End PPH Initiative is built on four pillars — Advocacy and Community Awareness, Research, Evidence and Upskilling, Health Systems Innovation, and Data Strengthening — to cut PPH-related maternal deaths from 40 per cent to below 10 per cent within five years.
Prof Obimbo said the era of fragmented and static guidelines is over, urging localisation and community-wide engagement. He used the global FIGO platform to issue a rallying call for the third PPH Run, set for September 27, 2026.
The keynote culminated in a symbolic one-minute gesture, the “Step for Her,” inviting every attendee to take a step forward in commitment to saving mothers’ lives.
“So, wherever you will be, print your T-shirts and go block the roads. When someone asks why, tell them our women are dying of postpartum haemorrhage — which is preventable and manageable — and this needs to stop,” he urged.
World PPH Day aims to spotlight the 14 million women who suffer PPH annually, demanding urgent global attention and mobilisation.
At the heart of the initiative’s Health Systems Innovation pillar lies an effort to close the fatal gap in emergency care.
“Out of the ten women who die because of PPH, four of them die because they lack blood,” Prof Obimbo said.
To tackle this, the initiative introduced the ROAMING Blood Bank (Rural Outreach and Mobilisation Initiative for Network Growth) — an innovation aimed at building regular blood donor networks.
“Its core purpose is to educate and convert people to become
regular donors. Within the last 10 days, the initiative collected about 800
units of blood,” he said.
Another innovation targets the quality and accessibility of clinical training. To address the high cost of specialized training, the initiative launched the PPH School, integrating Virtual Reality (VR) and Extended Reality (XR) technologies for simulated learning.
“We localised the PPH School to build confidence in managing obstetrical emergencies. The VR/XR tool is scalable and can be used across the continent to guarantee competency in handling one of the most time-sensitive emergencies in medicine,” said Prof Obimbo.
The PPH School stems from the Research, Evidence and Upskilling pillar, led by Prof Julius Ogeng’o, who hailed the recognition FIGO accorded to Prof Obimbo.
“This will go a long way in influencing the PPH conversation within FIGO,” he said.
Accurate data forms the fourth pillar of the initiative.
“We will also work with the government because with wrong data, we make wrong decisions,” Prof Obimbo explained. “We want a dashboard where the Ministry of Health can identify priority areas and counties most affected by postpartum haemorrhage and other causes of maternal deaths.”
The envisioned Agile PPH Dashboard will integrate PPH data into maternal health registries, improving situational awareness and resource allocation.
The initiative’s momentum was reinforced by the World Health Organization’s new Consolidated Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of PPH, launched concurrently at FIGO. These guidelines, featuring 51 recommendations and a new PPH definition, are based on the largest global analysis of maternal health data to date, setting a new global standard of care.
“Aligning all these strategies, we have prioritised the first global Postpartum Haemorrhage Conference on July 22–24, 2026,” Prof Obimbo announced. “It will bring together experts to discuss practical solutions that can be implemented at the point of care.”
