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COVID-19 Vaccine Has No Demonstrated Impact on Miscarriage Rates in the United States, Research Shows
›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.
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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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2.6 Million Babies Are Stillborn Every Year
›Every day, 7,100 babies are stillborn. A tragic, complicated problem, stillbirth—which the WHO defines as a baby born with no signs of life at or after 28 weeks’ gestation—remains difficult to control and to assess. Some hospitals hide data on stillbirth, due to the shame and stigma associated with it. However, as White Ribbon Alliance CEO Betsy McCallon said at a recent Wilson Center event marking the 30th anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, stillbirth “had been hidden and neglected, but that is changing.”
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The 30th Anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative
›Since 1987, the number of women dying during pregnancy and delivery has dropped by 43 percent, saving hundreds of thousands of women’s lives—and changing the lives of their families—around the world. “Our achievement in making maternal mortality an injustice that needs to be recognized by health ministers, by heads of state, by heads of agencies, has been, I think, the single greatest achievement of the Safe Motherhood Initiative” since it began 30 years ago, said Ann Starrs, President and CEO of Guttmacher Institute, at a Wilson Center event marking the anniversary of this important effort.
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Climate Change and Women’s Health: New Studies Find Overlooked Links
›The intersection of reproductive health and climate change is an understudied nexus in academic literature. In her Nature article, “Considering Climate in Studies of Fertility and Reproductive Health in Poor Countries,” Kathryn Grace looks at how studies of contemporary fertility transitions are better served when they include the impacts of climate change.
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The Urban Disadvantage: Rethinking Maternal and Newborn Health Priorities
›Urbanization is changing the face of poverty and marginalization, and the maternal and newborn health field needs to change too, said a panel of experts at the Wilson Center on January 24.
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After Mexico City and Before Copenhagen: Keeping Our Promise to Mothers and Newborns
›Last October, on the heels of the UN General Assembly agreeing to the Sustainable Development Goals, the global health community met in Mexico City to discuss strategy for achieving the “grand convergence”: finally bridging the gap between maternal and newborn health in rich and poor countries. [Video Below]
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Malaria and Maternal Health: Treating Pregnant Women Reveals Need for Integration
›Ten years ago, a study was conducted in Mozambique to determine the impact of a new medicine for pregnant women with malaria. Over 1,000 women participated in a controlled trial of intermittent preventative treatment with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine – half received a placebo, the other half received the actual drug. All were given an insecticide-treated net.
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