WHO released the “Compendium on Respectful Maternal and Newborn Care” on 7th August 2025, addressing program managers with the aim of ending all forms of mistreatment and ensuring respectful care for all women?

This compendium will act as an evidence-based guide for managers, coordinators, and directors of maternal, newborn, and child health programs to understand, develop, and implement context-specific interventions at the facility level.

It includes:
Information on the multilevel drivers of mistreatment—behavior and attitude at the individual level, training gaps at organizational levels, and sociocultural gender norms and discrimination.
The manifestations that need to be eliminated or reduced—separating child and mother, physical and verbal abuse; and enabling privacy, effective communication, and bodily autonomy.
The necessary areas of intervention ranging from training in interpersonal communication to policies and law.
Ways to implement respectful care.- Implementation cycle
Data collection tools and indicators to help in research and evidence synthesis.
Enabling respectful maternity care will help ensure nurturing care of the mother and, subsequently, the child through a life-course approach.

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