Participant enrollment and follow-up
Enrollment in this study followed the EG routine ANC booking and registration procedure in the health centers. Health center midwives collected the required information from pregnant women at ANC booking according to the national ANC registration guidelines. After the routine ANC booking and initial assessment by the midwives, the pregnant women were invited to participate in this study. We recruited and deployed dedicated study midwives in each of the study health centers who enrolled pregnant women, interviewed them (at enrollment), and extracted study participants’ ANC service- and delivery-related data from the ANC and delivery registration books. The pregnant women were given complete information as to the objective of this study and their benefits/risks, and only after providing their consent were they enrolled in this study. The eligibility criteria for the pregnant women to be included in this study were that they must be enrolled in this study at their first ANC booking and had a confirmed positive pregnancy test. There was no limit on gestational age at enrollment to participate in this study. The enrollment characteristic information of the pregnant women collected included personal identifiers, residence, gestational age, gravida, number of children ever born, education, and household assets (proxy to economic status), among a few others. During follow-up, the ANC and delivery-related data of the study participants were extracted regularly from the routine ANC and delivery registration books. A woman-baby dyad (pair) was considered lost to follow-up if a woman did not come to the facility for a follow-up visit, changed her residence, died, miscarried, or aborted. Home deliveries without birthweight data were also considered lost to follow-up. The CRCT study, including enrollment and follow-up, was conducted during the period from March 2021 to July 2022.Data quality assurance and supervision were an integral part of this study, and these in particular focused on the accuracy, completeness, and recording of birth weight. We provided a highly accurate, new digital newborn weight scale (known as 