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COVID-19’s Pregnancy Paradox: Greater Disease Risk but Lower Vaccine Priority
›“Greater attention to pregnant patients as a unique population at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection sequelae, is critical to preventing maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality,” write the authors of a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology examining morbidity and mortality among pregnant women with COVID-19 in Washington state. The study found “markedly higher” hospitalization and fatality rates among this group compared with similarly-aged non-pregnant individuals.
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Reviving Culture Through First Nations Midwifery
›“It’s more than just clinical care. It’s cultural. It’s connection to country. It’s connection to land. It’s all of those things that are important to the woman and family, kinship, babies,” says Mel Briggs, a First Nations midwife in Australia, speaking about the importance of Aboriginal midwifery in this week’s Friday Podcast. Like her great-grandmother, Briggs followed the call to midwifery and finds joy in helping women and families “create really healthy, chunky, fat babies.”
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Turning Applause into Action: Investing in Women Leaders in Nursing and Midwifery
›“Midwives and nurses contribute to the health of women, families, communities, and society at large, but the impact of their care goes much further… Their care is transformational,” said Diene Keita, Deputy Executive Director for Programmes at UNFPA. She spoke at a recent event hosted by Women in Global Health, which virtually convened nurses and midwives from around the world to celebrate 100 outstanding women nurse and midwife leaders from over 50 countries. The event occurred in honor of the Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, as designated by the World Health Organization (WHO). The list of 100 leaders is the first global recognition of its kind and commemorates women’s unique stories of resilience, leadership, and hard work.
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Native American Midwives Help Navajo Families Thrive
›When Navajo Midwife Nicolle Gonzales talks with Native American women about birth, there’s a sense something is missing, she said in this week’s Friday Podcast. “But,” she said, “we don’t know what it is.” Gonzales grew up and remains on a Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. She became a midwife and founded the Changing Woman Initiative (CWI) to address unmet maternal health care needs in her community. She is of the Tl’aashchi’I, Red Bottom clan, born for Tachii’nii, Red Running into the Water clan, Hashk’aa hadzohi, Yucca fruit-strung-out-in-a line clan, and Naasht’ezhi dine’e, Zuni clan.
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Midwife-Delivered Interventions Could Provide Dramatic Benefits
›In a year that has presented enormous challenges, it is even more gratifying to present evidence that strengthens the importance of midwives as providers of essential sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services and the impact they can have on maternal and neonatal mortality and stillbirths, said Anneka Knutsson, Chief of the SRH Branch at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at a recent Wilson Center event, in partnership with UNFPA and Johnson & Johnson, to launch the Impact of Midwives study conducted by UNFPA, the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM), and the World Health Organization (WHO) and published in The Lancet Global Health.
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Reproductive Justice in the United States Prison System
›The United States imprisons the most women in the world. Across the United States, approximately 200,000 women are incarcerated—nearly an 800 percent increase since 1980. Women of color are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system. In 2017, twice as many Black women and 1.3 times as many Hispanic women were incarcerated compared to white women. An often overlooked aspect of the increasing rates of women’s incarceration is the impact on the sexual and reproductive health needs of these women. “Despite being the fastest growing incarcerated population, women and girls are correctional afterthoughts,” writes Kimberly Haven, an activist and formerly incarcerated woman who had to undergo a hysterectomy—a surgical procedure to remove the uterus (and, with it, childbearing possibilities)—after being denied proper menstrual products while incarcerated.
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The Resurgence of Indigenous Midwifery in Canada, New Zealand, and Mexico
›Globally, Indigenous women experience worse maternal health outcomes than non-Indigenous women. In the United States, the risk of maternal death is twice as high for Native women than for white women, while in Australia the risk is four and a half times higher. This week’s Friday Podcast highlights remarks from a recent Wilson Center event with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Confederation of Midwives about Indigenous midwifery.
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The Unseen Side of Pregnancy: Non-Communicable Diseases and Maternal Health (New Report)
›Around the world, approximately 18 million women of reproductive age die each year because of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and two in every three deaths among women are due to an NCD. In fact, NCDs have been the leading cause of death among women globally for at least the past 30 years. And yet, women’s specific needs are often excluded from conversations about NCDs. They are underrepresented in clinical research and the effect of NCDs on women in particular is rarely considered. NCD-related symptoms during pregnancy are commonly misinterpreted or dismissed by clinicians.
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