BRUSSELS, September 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

- Fourth annual event to celebrate motherhood and campaign for maternal health equality 

- Endeavouring to make motherhood a safe and positive experience for all 

Safe Motherhood Week 2018 organised by The Synergist, is taking place between September 3-9. This unique initiative that focuses on improving maternal care for women across the globe is now on its fourth year and this promises to be the biggest and most impactful yet.

Safe Motherhood Week (http://www.safemotherhoodweek.org/ ) brings together diverse people and organisations from all backgrounds and sectors around a shared goal - making motherhood a safe and positive experience.

This year, the event aims to highlight the shared experience of motherhood globally - issues pertaining to accessibility, vulnerability and inequality are global, and transcend cultural and geographical barriers.

"Since its inception, it has become clear that Safe Motherhood Week is an event that serves to galvanise the entire community of those involved in or interested in maternal healthcare," says CEO of The Synergist, Nicholas Brooke. "This worthy event aims to highlight the need to build a more efficient maternal health ecosystem and keep the conversation going around motherhood - after all, it is our collective responsibility to ensure motherhood is a safe and positive experience for all."

This year's Safe Motherhood Week marks the launch of the Maternal Health Synapse (http://www.safemotherhoodweek.org/synapse), a global, interactive, and searchable platform that seeks to identify existing maternal and neonatal care initiatives and actors, to bring together people and projects, match solutions to resources, and solve specific needs in an efficient and sustainable way.

Ultimately, the Synapse is an interconnected and dynamic repository of maternal health experts, activists, initiatives and resources that is focused on building a crowdsourced global actionable community on maternal health. It also facilitates access to smart resources, innovators and problem-solvers, whether they are working independently, or within organizations. Eventually, as the Synapse grows, it will act as a 'marketplace' for urgent maternal health needs and resources.

This event urges organisations to get involved with the Synapse when it launches. The benefits of joining the Maternal Health Synapse include:

• Making the initiative visible to others
• Finding the right partner, organization, initiative or resource
• Reducing duplication
• Increasing access to potential collaborations
• Mapping the maternal health landscape

This groundbreaking and ambitious project has been officially launched during The Convergences Forum in Paris on September 3-4, which also marks the official opening of Safe Motherhood Week. Our funding partners are the Sanofi Foundation and UCB.

Safe Motherhood Week 2018 will also see the launch of the Public Consultation of the Policy Ask of the Alliance for Maternal Health Equality, on 6 September. The Policy Ask of the Alliance for Maternal Health Equality is: free antenatal care for all women in Europe on the basis of the 2016 World Health Organization ('WHO') Recommendations on Antenatal Care for a Positive Pregnancy Experience.

This initiative encourages organisations, experts, policy makers or parents to help validate the 'ask', enabling to create a concrete and practical approach to ensure free antenatal care for all women in Europe.

About The Synergist 

The Synergist is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to bring together the stakeholders that can make a difference. These include corporations, academics, other experts, medical professionals, patients and NGOs.

Our main role is to act as incubator; we identify the right people and organisations, bring them together, provide overall strategic direction and coordination. In parallel we manage fundraising, communications and technical development.

About The Motherhood Collective Impact Programme 

Safe Motherhood Week is part of the Motherhood Collective Impact Programme (MCIP), a not-for-profit partnership that aims to address the most challenging issues in maternal health by taking a novel, co-impact and systems-based approach.

The MCIP also includes the Alliance for Maternal Health Equality and the Pregnancy and Medicines Initiative.

SOURCE The Synergist