With the election of Barack Obama, many in the women’s health community believed this change in U.S. leadership would signal a new era in sexual and reproductive health for the world’s women.
Has it?
Join the discussion at the blog salon After the Gag Rule: An International Agenda for Women and Girls. The online [...]

To celebrate Mother and Child Health Week in Rwanda, Global Health Progress (GHP) held a roundtable discussion with maternal and child health-focused organizations operating in Rwanda to learn more about ongoing projects promoting the health of women and children. Accordingthe GHP, 
Rwanda is making good progress in improving access to health-related services. The World Health Organization [...]

I just watched this great video from EngenderHealth. They’re launching their 3FOR1 campaign to urge President Obama and Congress to commit $1 billion to international family planning programs in 2010. This represents less than .03% of the proposed 2010 federal budget–less than a penny per day for every American. What do you think?

Today I read Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem’s piece, “Mothers Should Not Die Giving Life,” in Women’s eNews. In this piece, he puts a face on the stats — his sister, Asmau. 
Asmau was far from illiterate. She was a senior science teacher in a secondary school and her husband is a college principal. In income terms, both [...]

White Ribbon Alliance is launching their “Million Mums” campaign on Mother’s Day in the UK (22nd March 2009). The goal is to sign up a million people and raise a million pounds. Check out their site here.
What are you planning for this year’s Mother’s Day?

Yesterday, Sarah Brown wrote a piece for the Guardian on her new campaign to improve maternal care. In the article she referenced Professor Allan Rosenfield’s famous quote, “Where is the ‘M’ in MCH?” To address this question, she referenced some recent positive steps forward. She said:
For the first time, Comic Relief made maternal health one of [...]

Experts estimate that post partum haemorrhage accounts for about one quarter of the estimated 535,000 women who die each year after childbirth — that’s 133,750 women. New evidence from the DFID funded Future Health Systems Research Programme Consortium was recently published in The International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. According to Dr. David M. Bishai, a [...]

by Riley Willis, Family Care International
A Powerful Noise LIVE demonstrated not only the capacity for the field of Women’s Empowerment to put on a nation-wide advocacy event, but also the possibility of engaging the public in these issues. The film celebrated three marginalized women who mobilized their communities from the ground up, ultimately bettering the [...]

Yesterday was International Women’s Day. What did your organization do to celebrate or raise awareness?

In response to the NY Times article that we blogged about, the newspaper published a letter from Karen J.  Beattie, director of the Fistula Care Project. She wrote:
Re “After a Devastating Birth Injury, Hope” (Feb. 24): While increasing access to fistula repair surgery restores hope and improves lives, there is no way to stem the rising backlog [...]