The reproductive, maternal and newborn evidence series

The reproductive, maternal and newborn evidence series provides an overview of relevant current evidence concentrating on those areas where policy or practical decisions will have to be made.

The series is primarily aimed at informing the design and implementation of the UK Government’s Framework for Results.

It concentrates on regions where DFID has a major presence (primarily Africa and South Asia) and on areas with direct links to policy and practice decisions.  

The scale of the task has required an incremental approach; with knowledge products made available at different times over the course of almost a year, as set out below. 

Some of these are created using standard systematic review methodology and others from structured literature reviews. 

Although designed primarily to assist DFID and its partners the evidence series is also available publicly in case it is useful to others. 

Please note that the structured reviews are working papers and will be updated periodically to include significant new published research, further research synthesis within DFID, and user feedback. 

Every effort has been made to give a fair and balanced summary, but inevitably some judgements have to be subjective.

If readers consider that the evidence on a particular issue is not accurately described or that important studies have been missed which would change the balance of evidence, please let us know so that we can consider these when correcting or updating these papers. 

The evidence series on reproductive, maternal and newborn health