Tag: reproductive health matters
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Family planning and safe, legal abortion go hand in hand
Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters One in three women in the UK will have an abortion in her lifetime, most of whom will have been using contraception of some kind. Yet since as long ago as the late 1930s, there has been a split in the UK between those who insisted on promoting contraception…
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The morning after: the beginnings of an assessment of the FP Summit
Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters 13 July 2012 From a communications point of view, the FP Summit was a raving success. Newspapers, TV and radio all over the world covered it. Around the globe everyone reached by the media heard how wonderful family planning is and how neglected it has been, the Lancet launched…
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Botched Motherhood – A Poem
A poem by Tiro Sebina – featured in Reproductive Health Matters May 2012 You may not want to hear About a woman who died In labour in a hut You may not want to hear About an expectant woman Who perished aboard A donkey cart On a bumpy road to an apology Of a health post With…
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Trends in maternal mortality 1990-2010: latest data
by Marge Berer Editor Reproductive Health Matters Thanks to the Millennium Development Goals and much work on the part of the UN, WHO, many governments and NGOs globally and nationally, the press and media are now highly attuned to what is happening as regards maternal mortality. An announcement by WHO on behalf of the United…
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Maternal health: hospital delivery does not guarantee good care
Hospital delivery does not guarantee good care: recent cases of women who died in a referral hospital in a sub-Saharan African country Published on the British Medical Journal Guest Blog, 17 May 2012 A key focus of work in the field of safe motherhood has been on increasing deliveries in medical facilities with access to…
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Is eradication of congenital syphilis feasible?
On 1 March, the Global Congenital Syphilis Partnership held a press conference to announce the launch of a global campaign to eradicate congenital syphilis, motivated by evidence from a seven-country pilot study that used a rapid blood test for screening. The aim of the studies was to test pregnant women for syphilis, treat any who…
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Hormonal contraception and risk of HIV: new studies, the issues, and the response of the World Health Organization
Many feminists, including me, actively opposed the hormonal injectable contraceptive Depo Provera (DMPA) three decades ago ̶ it was at a time when certain women weren’t being given a choice of method or any information about possible side effects, and before long-term post-marketing studies began to be done to monitor long-term safety. Here in the…
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Jingle pills indeed
This post first appeared on the BMJ Group Blog, 12th December 2011 Many years ago now, when news of female sterilisation first came out, Catholic priests in Puerto Rico and other Catholic countries preached from their pulpits against women being sterilised. As a result many more women learned that sterilisation existed, and many went out…