It has been two decades since President George W. Bush launched the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – or PEPFAR, and a recent Wilson Center event to celebrate the anniversary demonstrated that its impact as one of the most successful global public health programs is indisputable. Since its inception, PEPFAR has invested more than $100 billion in the global fight against HIV and AIDS, resulting in more than 25 million lives saved and millions of new infections prevented.

The sixth International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) held in Pattaya, Thailand in November 2022 offered an important reason for celebration: tens of millions more people are using a modern method of family planning now than were doing so when the first ICFP was held in London ten years ago. How has this happened? One key reason is that governments, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and donors globally are taking steps to advance reproductive freedom through providing voluntary family planning.

In 2022, the Dot-Mom column published several pieces from expert guest authors from the greater maternal and reproductive health community. In our top read guest contributor piece of the year, Susie Jolly examined the role of colonialism in sexuality education globally. Jolly highlighted examples where sexual health knowledge is built on unethical medical research carried out on racialized people, such as the study of untreated syphilis among Black men in the United States. Sexuality educators, especially those placed in the Global North, have a responsibility to work to decolonize their work. Jolly suggests supporting resources led by marginalized people, critically examining colonialism’s influence in the understanding of sexuality, and shifting the dynamics of who decides on content to lend more weight to non-Western expertise and young people learning from their own experiences.

For six years, the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Index has been a tool to hold the United States accountable to the commitments made nearly three decades ago at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994, where 180 countries developed a human rights framework for global development that explicitly promoted SRHR for women and girls globally.

Many researchers have documented the impact of the Global Gag Rule (GGR) around the world—and what happens when the policy is in place. “But we don’t know enough about what happens when the policy is revoked,” said Bergen Cooper, Director of Policy Research at Fòs Feminista at the launch of the organization’s new report, Chaos Continues: The 2021 Revocation of the Global Gag Rule and The Need for Permanent Repeal.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified pre-existing inequalities and vulnerabilities,” writes the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in a recent report on the impact of COVID-19 on sex workers in East and Southern Africa. The pandemic has had an impact on people in marginalized communities around the world, but for sex workers globally, “the impact on livelihoods, human rights and health has been devastating, leaving many struggling to survive,” states the report.

COVID-19 continues to pose a high risk to pregnant people who contract the virus. Despite this concern, hesitancy surrounding the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy remains, write the authors of a preprint article on COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy outcomes. As COVID-19 vaccines become more widely available, some have raised concerns regarding potential links between receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and experiencing miscarriage (also known as spontaneous abortion), and other adverse outcomes. However, miscarriage is a common occurrence – around 10 to 15 percent of all pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage – and multiple studies have found no increase in miscarriage in persons who received a COVID-19 vaccine.

In the United States, approximately 10 to 15 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But this doesn’t capture the full picture. In reality, studies show that as many as half of all pregnancies may end in miscarriage, with the vast majority occurring before people realize they are pregnant. A miscarriage is defined as pregnancy loss before 20 weeks gestation. While some health conditions such as autoimmune disorders, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and diabetes can exacerbate the risk of having a miscarriage, the exact causes of pregnancy loss are largely unknown.