Our global community must stay connected to the issues that impact midwives and their frontline work. Every Friday, ICM publishes a ‘Top 5 List’ of news stories from the week related to the development world, gender, and maternal health.
Here is our Top Five List from the week of 30 October 2020:
Gender
UN: After 20 years, no equality for women in peace talks,Independent, 30.10.20
The head of the U.N. agency promoting gender equality told the 20th anniversary commemoration of a resolution demanding equal participation for women in peace negotiations that its implementation has failed, declaring Thursday that women still remain “systematically excluded” from talks to end conflicts where men make decisions affecting their lives.
Maternal health
Providing quality midwifery care amid crisis,Relief Web, 29.10.30
Jamila Garad, 26, is a midwife who carries out outreach midwifery services voluntarily in Gurel Camp for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and to the host community in villages close to the IDP camp. Ms. Garad graduated as a midwife in 2017 from Galgadud Midwifery School. The school receives financial and technical support from UNFPA Somalia.
The Surprising Truth About How Long Postpartum Depression Lasts,Huffington Post, 28.10.20
Postpartum depression may be more severe (though not always) and lasts longer, often appearing weeks after giving birth but sometimes not for a full year — or, as this new research suggests, even longer. It builds on a recent scientific review that found up to 50% of moms with postpartum depression struggle beyond the first year.
Protecting Your Birth: A Guide For Black Mothers, New York Times, 22.10.20
The data is heartbreakingly clear: Black women in America have more than a three times higher risk of death related to pregnancy and childbirth than their white peers. This is regardless of factors like higher education and financial means, and for women over 30, the risk is as much as five times higher. This guide is meant to help Black women feel safer, and to provide a modern framework for medical providers to actively address their own racism.
Key institutional/ organizational highlights.
Beyond “Women and Children”: Gendered Community Engagement Strategies in UN Peace Operations,Relief Web, 29.10.20
Practitioners and advocates have made the call for uniformed women’s increased participation in United Nations peace operations as a central feature of the women, peace, and security (WPS) agenda’s implementation. The UN Security Council is expected to include a woman peacekeeper as a briefer in this month’s Open Debate on WPS alongside the traditional civil society briefer, indicating that the Council recognizes uniformed women as central to implementing the WPS agenda.
Steroids boost survival of preterm babies in low-resource settings, new study finds, WHO, 23,10,20
The results of a new clinical trial, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, show that dexamethasone—a glucocorticoid used to treat many conditions, including rheumatic problems and severe COVID-19— can boost survival of premature babies when given to pregnant women at risk of preterm birth in low-resource settings.
Here is our Top Five List from the week of 23 October 2020:
Gender
Experts call for ‘deeper data’ on women’s realities at UN World Data Forum,Devex, 22.10.20
Just 28% of the science and engineering workforce globally are female, while 20% of ICT professionals are female. This is according to the seventh edition of The World’s Women, which provides a snapshot of the latest data on gender equality worldwide. As part of World Statistics Day on Oct. 20, the report was launched at the 2020 U.N. World Data Forum, providing a snapshot of the latest data on gender equality worldwide.
When the price of water is sexual assault,Devex, 22.10.20
In a village in Kenya, women wait to fill their jerrycans. While 2 Kenyan shillings ($0.01) should be payment enough, oftentimes the men operating the informal pumps, boreholes, or kiosks demand a higher price. Sometimes, it’s not just money they’re after. In many households that lack access to safe, readily available water at home, the responsibility of visiting the nearest clean water facility often falls to women and girls. But experts warn that leaves them vulnerable to harassment, sexual assault, or abuse.
Midwifery
Delivering on the promise of UHC for mothers in the COVID-19 era and beyond,Devex, 22.10.20
The COVID-19 pandemic has created tough new challenges for many low- and middle-income countries that already had strained health systems, while simultaneously triggering a socioeconomic crisis that is disproportionately impacting women. Lockdowns, supply chain bottlenecks, diverted resources, shrinking incomes, and fear, combined with limited health information, have made it harder for all populations to access essential health services during the pandemic. Those barriers and the consequences of health service interruptions are often amplified for new and expectant mothers and the children in their care.
Midwives on the front lines working to reverse Afghanistan’s high maternal death rate,Relief Web, 21.10.20
Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, according to United Nations data. Some 638 women die per 100,000 live births. Poverty, lack of access to health services and gender inequality all contribute to these tragically high numbers; fewer than 60 per cent of births are overseen by skilled health professionals.
Paving a safe road to motherhood for Rohingya adolescents,Relief Web, 14.10.20
Adolescents under 18 years of age constitute 55% of the displaced Rohingya population in Bangladesh. Due to the prevalence of adolescent pregnancies and the lack of access to correct information about sexual and reproductive health in the refugee camps, many pregnant girls in the Rohingya community find themselves at high risk of life-threatening maternal health complications.
Key institutional/ organizational highlights.
New UN gender study: Women ‘far from having an equal voice to men’,UN News, 20.10.20
Introducing the 2020 edition of The World’s Women: Trends and Statistics, Liu Zhenmin, chief of the UN’s economic and social affairs department (DESA), said that over the last two decades, “attitudes of discrimination are slowly changing” and women’s lives have improved with regard to education, early marriage, childbearing and maternal mortality, all while progress has stagnated in other areas. “Women are far from having an equal voice to men”, spelled out the DESA chief. “And, in every region of the world, women are still subjected to various forms of violence and harmful practices”.
Focus on fundamentals as COVID-19 caseloads rise: WHO,UN News, 19.10.20
As COVID-19 cases continue to accelerate, particularly in Europe and North America, the World Health Organization (WHO) is advising governments and people everywhere not to let their guard down, for the benefit of those hospitalized, or working on the front line of the battle to end the pandemic. Last week, WHO reported that the pandemic has entered a worrying phase as the northern hemisphere winter season approaches.
Here is our Top Five List from the week of 16 November 2020:
ICM in the news
The Resurgence of Indigenous Midwifery in Canada, New Zealand, and Mexico, New Security Beat, 16.10,20
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 edition of Friday Podcasts highlights remarks from a recent Wilson Center event with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the International Confederation of Midwives about Indigenous midwifery.
Midwifery/gender
More than 700 coronavirus-positive women gave birth at a single hospital. Here’s what it learned, Washington Post, 16.10.20
Over the course of the pandemic, pregnant women from all over greater Mumbai, home to at least 18 million people, converged on the BYL Nair Charitable Hospital. Its doctors believe the hospital has treated the largest number of pregnant women with covid-19 in India — and possibly in the world. Now the hospital’s experience is playing a key role in the global search to understand exactly how the coronavirus affects pregnant women and newborns.
Act now for maternity care that can survive the next crisis, Devex, 15.10.20
Earlier this year, seven stillborn babies were delivered in one night in one facility in Harare, Zimbabwe. In June, a laboring woman in India was denied care by eight different facilities over the course of 15 hours. At their most vulnerable hour, pregnant women and their infants are dying, not from COVID-19, but from the consequences of crumbling health care systems and the secondary effects of the pandemic.
Surging violence in Burkina Faso threatens women’s access to health care, Devex, 14.10.20
Ramata Sawadogo was eight weeks pregnant when she was chased from her home by gunmen in May of last year. The 30-year-old spent the next few months running from village to village, in search of refuge and health care, in Burkina Faso’s center-north region. At times, Sawadogo walked for more than a week with her six children to reach another town. Other times, she’d sleep in abandoned schools, all the while concerned that the stress and lack of food and medical care would harm her unborn baby.
Extreme Pain, but Also Extreme Joy, New York Times, 13.10.20
Powerful images of midwives in Los Angeles, as demand for their services rose during the pandemic.
Here is our Top Five List from the week of 18 September 2020:
ICM in the news
COVID-19 has disproportionately affected black mothers in America, Media Planet, 23.09.20
During the Black Lives Matter movement, inside the confines of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been painfully reminded of the distressing maternal health outcomes for black American women highlighted in media reports, political speeches, and within the communities impacted by their real-life consequences. ICM President, Franka Cadée and ICM Board Member, Pandora Hardtman have come together to highlight the realities facing birthing and pregnant women navigating maternal and newborn care in the United States.
Development World
How COVID-19 could help create more diversity in the aid sector, Devex, 24.09.20
Global aid is not diverse, and while criticism for its racist and colonialist power structures has been long-standing, decisive actions to diversify voices and transfer power have been limited.The coronavirus pandemic, however, may just provide the opening we need to transform these entrenched systems.
Reaching the world’s most vulnerable poses biggest challenge for COVID-19 vaccine, experts say, Devex, 24.09.20
Global health and development leaders expressed optimism during the United Nations General Assembly this week that a COVID-19 vaccine is forthcoming and can end the devastating pandemic. But many warned that equitable distribution will face additional hurdles of financing and misinformation once an effective vaccine is found.
Gender
Slovak conservatives hope to tighten abortion law, rights groups protest, Reuters, 24.09.20
Christian lawmakers in Slovakia hope to win parliamentary approval for a tightening of abortion rules in a vote expected on Friday, part of a trend towards more socially conservative policies across parts of central Europe.
If adopted, the new regulation would still allow abortion on demand until 12 weeks but would double waiting periods to 96 hours, ban clinics from advertising services and make women declare their reasons for termination.
Midwifery
The Rise of Midwifery in Developing Countries Amid COVID-19, Borgen Magazine, 19.09.20
As an increasing amount of health funding gets redirected to COVID-19 response programs worldwide, other health care areas in need of aid are feeling the impacts. In April, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reported how the pandemic may lead to 47 million women in low-and-middle-income countries losing access to sexual and reproductive health services such as contraception. Moreover, a rise in COVID-19 cases will likely result in pregnant women becoming increasingly wary of health facilities in fear that they might catch the virus. Expectant mothers unfortunately have to worry about the exorbitant cost of delivering a baby on top of it all. As a result, midwifery in developing countries is becoming popular as a safe and cost-effective solution.
Here is our Top Five List from the week of 18 September 2020:
Gender
Beirut blast adds to women’s money and health worries in Lebanon, Reuters, 16.09.20
As Lebanon reels from the impact of the blast that killed 200 people, injured thousands, forced some 250,000 from their homes and left countless without work, campaigners warn that women face some of the heaviest financial and health burdens. A charter signed by more than 40 civil society groups in Lebanon called for the humanitarian response to focus on women’s needs, as many of those living in parts of Beirut hit by the blast were female refugees, migrants, elderly or unemployed.
Why doing nothing is a radical act for India’s women,The Guardian, 17.09.20
Sociologist Shilpa Phadke agrees. The co-author of Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets, which celebrates loitering as a radical act, says: “Leisure or perhaps more importantly the possibility of just doing nothing, especially in public, is a deeply feminist issue. It indicates a claim to the city, the right to be out for fun, to hang out, to belong to the city.”
Maternal Health
Covid 19 disruptions to health services increasing pregnant women’s anxiety in South Africa,Relief Web, 18.09.20
South Africa has one of the largest coronavirus epidemic in the African continent. The total number of confirmed cases is around 633 000, according to the recent figures of the National Department of Health in the country. For thousands of pregnant women and mothers, times are tough and frightening as they might be strongly affected by the disruption of routine health services.
Levels and Trends in Child Mortality: Report 2020, Relief Web, 09.09.20
The number of global under-five deaths dropped to its lowest point on record in 2019 – down to 5.2 million from 12.5 million in 1990, according to new mortality estimates released by UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the World Bank Group. Since then, however, surveys by UNICEF and WHO reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in major disruptions to health services that threaten to undo decades of hard-won progress.
Key institutional/ organizational highlights
WHO chief makes last push for countries to join multilateral COVID-19 vaccine effort, UN News, 17.09.20
Countries which have not signed on to a global mechanism that has pledged to provide fair and timely access to a COVID-19 vaccine, are urged to do so before Friday, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) told a virtual meeting of Member States, held on the eve of the deadline.
Here is our Top Five List from the week of 11 September 2020:
Gender
Coronavirus: Why are women paying a heavier price?,Aljazeera, 11.09.20
Humanitarian crises can affect the lives of men and women differently – and the coronavirus pandemic is no exception.
“COVID-19 has had a devastating social and economic impact on women and girls, reversing decades of limited and fragile progress on gender equality,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last week.
Midwifery
Canada announces more funds for midwifery, GBV services in South Sudan during pandemic, Relief Web, 09.09.20
The Government of Canada announced an additional 4.2 million Canadian dollars contribution to the United Nations Population Fund in South Sudan to boost midwifery services and support the response to gender-based violence as the country deals with the chronic humanitarian crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. In partnership with the UNFPA and the Ministry of Health, the Canadian government is supporting the Strengthening Midwifery Services Project, which aims to address the high maternal death rate in the country, which is one of the highest in the world. The additional funding will support the training and deployment of midwives and other health professionals, and support the South Sudan Nurses and Midwives Association.
Why Modern Indigenous Parents Are Turning To Traditional Pregnancy Practices,Huffington Post, 10.09.20
Indigenous women today are increasingly seeking out Indigenous birthing facilities and practitioners ― though culturally appropriate resources are not always easy to find. Chelsea Luger went through her own struggle finding appropriate prenatal health care. She started seeing a non-Native doctor at a tribal clinic, whom she found to be condescending. She needed a provider who respected her, her family and culture, so she sought referrals from her co
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