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An estimated 810 women die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications around the world every day. And for every woman who dies, it’s estimated 20 more experience acute or chronic morbidity. Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths and morbidities occur in developing countries.
The Wilson Center’s Maternal Health Initiative is committed to improving maternal health outcomes by increasing knowledge, understanding, and communication of creative interventions that can be integrated into policies and programs worldwide.
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PHOTO CREDIT: USAID IN AFRICA.
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“A Devastating Toll”: Sudan’s Maternal Health Nightmare
›Ongoing fighting in Sudan has led to a devastating humanitarian crisis that United Nations Humanitarian and Emergency Relief Chief Martin Griffiths calls “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history.”
Among the millions of people harmed by the fighting are countless pregnant people and new mothers, who face direct and indirect threats to their health and lives in the country’s renewed conflict. Sudan was already suffering from a maternal mortality crisis prior to the onset of its latest civil war. Before the most recent round of bloodshed, Sudan’s maternal mortality rate stood at 270 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020 – higher than the global average of 223 deaths. And as this crisis worsens, it is imperative to call attention to what is occurring there.
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New Injectable Promises Complete Protection from HIV for Young Women
›Last month, the biopharmaceutical company Gilead shared groundbreaking results from a recent clinical trial (PURPOSE1) for long-acting injectable HIV prevention. The twice-yearly injectable drug, lenacapavir, provided total protection from HIV for a test group of 2,134 women in Uganda and South Africa. While lenacapavir has been used to treat multi-drug resistant HIV since 2022, this trial marks the first usage as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). PrEP is one tool to prevent the virus, and refers to anti-retroviral medication taken by people who do not have HIV to reduce the risk of contracting it through sexual transmission or injection drug use. These new findings offer immense promise for the future of PrEP as a global tactic to protect young women from contracting HIV.
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Sexuality Censorship: Brazilian Sex Education Suppression Hurts LGBTQ Youth
›Brazil’s federally mandated, comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is under fire. A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that over the past decade, conservative groups have put forth more than 200 legislative proposals with the express intent to ban sexual orientation and gender education in primary and secondary schools.
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Innovative Strategies: Engaging Midwives in Climate Adaptation and Resilience
›“There is a really important need in talking about knowledge equity around what is actually happening with the climate crisis, and what happens to maternal [and] neo-natal health as a result of it,” said Neha Mankani, Midwifery Association Capacity Assessment Strengthening Lead at the International Confederation of Midwives, at a recent Wilson Center event titled “Midwives Are Key to Climate Resilience.”
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Climate Change and Gender Roles: Women’s Active Role in Adaptation
›“The success or failure of any adaptation strategy or action highly depends on the understanding of the capacities of a community or an individual to adapt to climate-associated risks,” write the authors of a recent systematic review of literature, Gender and Adaptive Capacity in Climate Change Scholarship of Developing Countries.
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State of the World Population Report: Interwoven Lives
›In 2024, the world marks the thirtieth anniversary of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo. At this pivotal meeting, 179 countries produced a watershed Program of Action (PoA) that put people at the center of development to better realize health, rights and choices for all. This PoA prioritized human rights, the empowerment of women and girls, and addressed existing inequalities. It also put forth a new strategy that emphasized vital linkages between population and development that moved away from a focus on demographic targets, like fertility rates, and shifted the focus to the needs of individual women and men.
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Planning for Women in a Postwar Gaza
›International organizations and media stories have showcased how civilian women and children have been the primary victims of the Israeli campaign to eliminate Hamas in Gaza in the last seven months. Yet, the focus has been on exactly that—women and children as victims of violence. Little thought has been given to what happens to Palestinian women and children in Gaza once the guns are silenced and it comes time not only to reckon with the unimaginable violence and hardship endured during the war but to rebuild their lives and communities.
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Q&A: Midwives as a Vital Climate Solution
›Dot-Mom // Guest Contributor // Q&A // May 3, 2024 // By Esther Bander, Rosemary Ngougu, Eugenia Mensah, Angeline Houman & Pandora HardtmanMay 5th is the International Day of the Midwife. This year’s theme, “Midwives: A Vital Climate Solution,” acknowledges the role that midwives play by delivering environmentally sustainable health services, adapting health systems to climate change, and as first responders when climate-related disasters occur. Empowering a resilient health workforce with midwives as first contacts for maternal health care can improve universal health coverage through reductions in environmental impact, as well as more efficient, less costly health systems, and stronger local economies.