Reproductive Health: A Unit of the PIH Community Health Worker Training Series - Rwanda

Community health workers are trained to explain to women the basic processes of pregnancy and birth, and the importance and benefits of Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT), prenatal and postnatal care, and health facility delivery. They are trained to help women to identify danger signs during pregnancy that require immediate attention at the health center and to help women to plan for delivery at the health center. Community health workers are also trained to help pregnant women with HIV prevent passing HIV to their babies (PMTCT).

In preparation for visiting women who have just given birth, community health workers are trained to discuss with women how to keep themselves and their babies healthy, attend all postnatal visits at the health center, and get their babies vaccinated according to the national schedule.

Finally, community health workers learn to discuss with women and their families that reproductive health care is a human right and that everyone has the right to achieve health and well-being and live in dignity, including pregnant women, women who have just given birth, and their newborn babies. Community health workers have an important role in helping these women and their families fulfill this basic human right.