Updates

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

Gender can influence men’s and women’s health in profound ways; social expectations of what men and women should and should not do can directly affect attitudes and behaviors related to a wide variety of health issues. Often, it is men who decide the frequency and timing of sexual activity and whether or not to use contraceptives, sometimes through coercion or violence. Gender-based violence can contribute to the spread of HIV and sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), and lead to poor reproductive health outcomes for women. And because of women’s low status in many societies, maternal health services are not prioritized. Empowering women is a critical step to turning this around, but efforts cannot end there: men must also be actively engaged as partners in change. Read more... 

By: Melinda French Gates
Originally posted by: the Impatient Optimists

After an amazing amount of progress on  women’s and children’s health in 2011, I’m starting off 2012 by heading to Bangladesh. I’ll be learning even more about two of the biggest killers of children—pneumonia and diarrhea. Bangladesh has made incredible progress in recent years, reducing the number of childhood deaths by 65 percent since 1990. I’m excited to learn what they’ve done right and the challenges that remain. 

While in Bangladesh, I’ll be joining Nick Kristof in answering questions from readers about maternal and child health on his New York Times blog “On the Ground.” Why these topics? Read more... 

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern

Two reasons—a lack of spare parts and too few highly trained technicians—are often cited as the causes of large numbers of out-of-service laboratory and medical equipment across the developing world. As a result of broken equipment, already burdened health systems find it increasingly challenging to accurately diagnose and treat patients.

This obstacle is particularly alarming as 2015, the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), looms on the horizon. Strong, functioning health systems are essential to reaching the MDGs, and MDG 5 in particular. With this in mind, Duke University researchers from Robert Malkin’s Developing World Healthcare Technology Laboratory set out to better understand the problem of unused or underutilized medical equipment in developing countries. Read more...

By: Alexander Jackson, originally posted on Baltimore Business Journal

A Johns Hopkins University affiliate has been awarded $1.6 million from the GE Foundation to support the development of lifesaving technologies for women and children in developing countries.

Jhpiego, a Baltimore-based international nonprofit, will use the money to create new products through its Innovation Development Program. Centered on maternal and child health, the program focuses on early-stage innovation and then, for selected projects, field-testing and product introduction. Read more...

By: Madeline Taskier, Strategic Partnerships Associate, Women Deliver
 
When Kakenya Ntaiya was 5 years old, she was engaged to be married. Growing up in Enoosaen, a rural Maasi village in southwestern Kenya, she helped her mother tend the farm and cattle, take care of her siblings, and gather water from the river. She rarely had the chance to attend school; only when her chores were completed.

In her village, like many others in Kenya, girls are expected to undergo female genital cutting (FGC), a coming-of-age ritual signifying womanhood at the age of puberty. After the ceremony has concluded, she is deemed ready for marriage. But Kakenya did not want to be married yet. She had dreams of going through primary and secondary school, going to college and becoming a teacher. Read more...

A Call for Engagement by the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Community

By: Alicia Ely Yamin is Director of the Program on the Health Rights of Women and Children at the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. She served on the 2011 PMNCH Commitments Report advisory Panel.

It is understandable that the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) communities have generally maintained a critical distance from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) process, as MDG 5 represented a dramatic departure from the hard-won, holistic vision of reproductive health set out in the 1994 Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and reaffirmed in the subsequent Beijing Declaration. Read more...

By: Lindsey Taylor Wood, Communications Associate at Women Deliver

Throughout the past week, the Social Good Summit was held in New York City to coincide with the UN General Assembly and served as a platform to highlight new initiatives and causes that are using social media to leverage support for global development issues. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

Many developing countries struggle to address their health needs without a complete picture of what those health needs are. The determinants of maternal mortality can be attributed to direct, indirect or underlying factors; it is important to identify the causes of pregnancy-related deaths to ensure resources are allocated most effectively to specific intervention and prevention strategies. But what do you do if you don’t have that data? Ghana is working to increase coverage of civil registration and quality of death attribution by training community-based volunteers. Read more...

By: Joy Lawn, Save the Children; Originally posted on the Healthy Newborn Network (HNN) here

If you were born today in Africa, you would face the same risk of dying in your first month of life as if you were born during World War II in Great Britain. That’s 11 times greater risk than British babies face today, seven decades later. Somalia is Africa’s most dangerous country to be born, with a risk almost 20 times higher. PLoS Medicine has just published a new study on newborn deaths by the World Health Organization, Save the Children and partners showing that, increasingly, a baby’s chance of surviving the first month of life depend on where that baby is born. Read more...

By: Susana Edjang, Project Manager for Every Woman Every Child effort in the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s Global Health Team

As people across the globe deliberate, whose perspective should be sought out and how can their participation be ensured?

I would like to think that everyone – no matter the background, gender, ethnic group or age – stops to think about the value of the lives of those mothers, sisters, friends, partners and daughters, and sons, that someone just like us loses unnecessarily every day due to preventable causes. The good news is that today we are doing more than just thinking or talking about it. The Every Woman Every Child effort, spear-headed by the UN Secretary-General, aims to ensure that we all work together and that our efforts towards saving and improving the lives of women and children, are better coordinated and enhanced putting into action the Global Strategy for Women and Children’s Health. Read more...

By: Mariko Rasmussen, Communications Specialist at Women Deliver

In Angola, child and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world. There are multiple causes for this dire distinction, and Pathfinder has implemented programs to help address two of the most prominent – malaria and a lack of access to safe delivery facilities. Although malaria is preventable, it is a major cause of maternal and newborn illness and death in the country. Read more…

By: Madeline Taskier, Partnership Coordinator at Women Deliver

Last month I attended a session at the 38th Annual Global Health Council Conference on immunization as a platform for family planning integration. Today I’d like to highlight a program featured at this session: a project aiming to reach high-need, postpartum women in Bamako, Mali with family planning services and counseling. Read more...

By: Rati Bishnoi, Special Projects Intern at Women Deliver

The Moroccan Ministry of Health last week hosted a scientific meeting to share lessons on its success in reducing maternal mortality by 60 percent since 1990—a success that has won it the distinction of being “one of a small group of countries ‘on track’ to achieve MDG 5 by 2015,” according to UNFPA. Read more...