Globally, 15 to 20 percent of women experience a perinatal mental health condition, said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at a recent event, held in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), on mental health support for mothers in the perinatal period. Women are more likely to develop anxiety or depression in the year after giving birth than in any other time in their lives, with suicide and overdose the leading causes of death in the first year postpartum. “And yet, the prevention, early recognition, and treatment of perinatal mental health conditions is a challenge for many, if not most, healthcare systems across the world,” said Barnes.

One in five women who is forcibly displaced will experience sexual violence, said Charlotte Slente, Danish Refugee Council Secretary-General at a roundtable on the prevention of gender-based violence in humanitarian crises during the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The high-level roundtable was hosted by the Government of Denmark in partnership with several other international bilateral agencies, as well as women-led organizations.*

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.

“When we started out, people thought it was weird. ‘Why are you integrating people and animals and why are you integrating human health and animal health?’” says Kalema-Zikusoka, founder of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), in this week’s New Security Broadcast. Indeed, health infrastructure and conservation have long been organized around distinct silos. “Donors were focusing on single sector funding, and government departments were aligned along single sectors,” says Kalema-Zikusoka.

Indonesia generates nearly 7 million tons of plastic waste each year but only 10 percent of that is recycled. The proportion is even lower in rural areas due to a lack of collection facilities. Waste is often burned or dumped on vacant land, and into rivers, lakes, and seas. 

A positive birth experience is not a luxury, but a necessity, said Hedieh Mehrtash, consultant for the Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organization (WHO), at a panel during the Maternal Mental Health Technical Consultation hosted by the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership, in collaboration with WHO and the United Nations Population Fund.