Malaria in Pregnancy

Supporting healthy pregnancies for both mother and baby

Malaria is a major threat to the lives of mothers, fetuses, and infants because pregnancy causes women to lose some of their immunity to malaria. The infection can thus cause anemia in the mother and lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurity, and low birth weight, a leading cause for infant death.

To protect women and their babies from malaria, PMI supports countries in a three-prong approach:

Providing pregnant mothers with insecticide-treated nets and encouraging them to sleep under them all night, every night
Ensuring pregnant mothers receive preventive treatment at prenatal visits after the first trimester
Promptly diagnosing and treating malaria and anemia in pregnant women

To make this possible, PMI works in partnership with national malaria control, reproductive health, and maternal and child health programs to support:

procurement and strengthening of the supply chain for the medicines, nets, and other essential commodities
training and supervising health workers on prenatal care
implementation activities to encourage use of nets and acceptance of the preventative medicine by pregnant women
global policies on malaria in pregnancy
operational research to improve intervention coverage