Maternal Health News and Research

RSS

FY12 State Department funding request cannot be fulfilled, House Foreign Ops committee chair says

It "will not be possible" to meet the funding request for the State Department in President Barack Obama's FY12 budget proposal, Rep. Kay Granger, chair of the House State-Foreign Operations Subcommittee, said at a hearing on Thursday, CQ reports.

14 Mar 2011

Opinions: Investing in science, technology; Indian public-private partnership for NTDs; U.S. global food security investments; Clinton's statements on PEPFAR; U.S. foreign aid; primary care

"Now is the time to support science and technology - especially in difficult economic times. It is the right thing to do, and it makes good economic sense," Alex Dehgan, science and technology adviser to the USAID administrator, and Kaitlin Christenson, coalition director for the Global Health Technologies Coalition, write in an opinion piece appearing on The Hill's "Congress Blog."

10 Mar 2011

Mother and baby report card for NSW

The Government statistics on births in New South Wales Mothers and Babies 2008, which was released on Saturday. It showed that 96,343 babies were born in NSW that year - 12 per cent more than the 85,262 born in 2004.

7 Mar 2011

Recent releases in Global Health

The Importance Of Investing In Adolescent Girls: A Lancet editorial examines the challenges adolescent girls living in developing countries face and the work of the U.N. Adolescent Girls Task Force to help young women overcome these barriers.

5 Mar 2011

Lancet Infectious Diseases examines how resource gaps are creating barriers to reduce child mortality

The Lancet Infectious Diseases' Newsdesk examines how resource gaps in immunizations, health workers and financing are creating barriers to efforts to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goal target to reduce child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, as highlighted in a recent Save the Children report.

3 Mar 2011

House Republicans release CR proposing to cut $100B from FY11 budget

House Republican leaders on Friday evening released legislation "designed to fund the rest of the fiscal year, which includes $100 billion in discretionary spending cuts compared with President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget request," National Journal reports.

15 Feb 2011

Politico looks at how proposed budget cuts could affect U.S. foreign aid, including global health funding

Politico examines how Republicans' proposed budget cuts could affect foreign aid funding. The House Republican majority has recommended combining President Barack Obama's "State and foreign aid requests with 'nonsecurity' domestic spending and to cut appropriations to 2008 levels."

3 Feb 2011

Recent releases in Global Health

Innovative Health Financing Can Benefit Global Health, Pharma: "The launch of pneumococcal vaccination in Nicaragua under AMC [advance market commitment] has shown that innovative approaches to health financing can benefit both global health and pharmaceutical companies," according to a Lancet Infectious Diseases editorial that describes how the roll-out of GAVI initiative is helping to provide developing countries with low-cost pneumococcal vaccines.

28 Jan 2011

NEPAD, GAIN sign Memorandum of Understanding to reduce malnutrition in Africa

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the New Partnership for Africa Development today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to significantly contribute to reducing malnutrition in Africa.

25 Jan 2011

U.N. commission to establish benchmarks for $40B maternal, child health initiative commitments

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will travel to Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday to co-chair a commission that aims to establish benchmarks for the U.N.'s $40 billion maternal and child health initiative that was establish at last year's Millennium Development Goal summit, the Canadian Press/Toronto Star reports (1/23).

25 Jan 2011

Eating less during early pregnancy impairs fetal brain development: Study

Eating less during early pregnancy impaired fetal brain development in a nonhuman primate model, researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio reported today.

18 Jan 2011

Opinions: Global health top foreign policy issue; Global food security; Opiate-substitution programs in Eastern Europe; Feed the future; Foreign aid lessons

In response to a story examining 2011's top foreign policy issues, Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, writes in a letter to the editor, published in The Hill, that "[g]lobal health was disturbingly absent from" the story. "Global health policy is at a critical turning point right now with the impending implementation of President Obama's Global Health Initiative, which will change our fundamental approach to health programs and policy," according to Sippel.

7 Jan 2011

Maternal depression adversely affects quality of life in children with epilepsy

A study by Canadian researchers examined the prevalence of maternal depression and its impact on children newly diagnosed with epilepsy. Prevalence of depression in mothers ranged from 30%-38% within the first 24 months following a child’s epilepsy diagnosis. The mother’s depressive symptoms negatively impacted the child’s health-related quality of life, but the effects were moderated by the amount of family resources and mediated by how well the family functions and the extent of family demands. Details of this novel study appear online in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy.

5 Jan 2011

Home births on the decline in UK: Midwives protest

According to a leader of Britain’s midwives, more and more women are being discouraged from giving birth at home. Cathy Warwick, general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives said that many GPs are citing harms of a home birth like dangerous bleeding where their midwives may be unable to help. Warwick said, “There are doctors that still tell women scary things that aren’t evidence-based that then put them off having a home birth…

30 Dec 2010

New U.N. commission will track donors' pledges on maternal, child health

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete will co-chair a new "U.N. commission tasked with tracking whether $40 billion in pledges from countries and aid groups are really flowing to efforts to improve the health of mothers and young children in poor countries, and what impact the programs have," the Globe and Mail reports (Clark, 12/16).

20 Dec 2010

Health professionals discuss on reducing maternal, newborn mortality, morbidity

On Tuesday 7 December 2010, maternal health professionals from Africa and Asia will be attending a workshop in Liverpool to discuss the effects of 'Making It Happen', a programme with a life-saving training package for health care providers at its heart. Participants will share successes and lessons learned from this maternal and newborn health intervention, to better determine how the programme can be scaled-up.

8 Dec 2010

Health experts, mobile service providers discuss potential for mobile health in Africa at summit

"Some 80 health professionals and telecom operators [met last week for the mHealth Africa Summit] in the Ghanaian capital Accra to explore ways to use mobile phones for better healthcare delivery," IRIN reports in an article that details a variety of successful projects relaying health information through cell phones in Africa. The article describes how mobile phones are being used in Africa to educate populations about HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and improve maternal health, as well as to track medicines and other health supplies, including mosquito nets.

7 Dec 2010

African Ministerial Conference concludes with health priority commitment

Health and environment ministers from at least 46 African countries concluded the Second Inter-Ministerial Conference on Health and Environment in Africa in Luanda, Angola on Friday, "with the adoption of the 'Luanda Commitment,' which lists the continent's health and environment top priorities in the years ahead," PANA/Afrique en ligne reports.

30 Nov 2010

Heartburn drugs safe in pregnancy: Study

Pregnancy brings about a lot of heartburn sometimes beginning in the first trimester and continuing until delivery. To date the drugs available for general use in heartburn called proton-pump inhibitors or PPIs were wrought with safety concerns during pregnancy.

24 Nov 2010

Mother’s high-fat diet alters fetal genes that regulate circadian rhythm: Study

The link between sleeping and obesity is drawn tighter as a new research published online in the FASEB Journal study shows that what your mother ate when she was pregnant may make you obese or overweight by altering the function of genes (epigenetic changes) that regulate circadian rhythm.

23 Nov 2010

Maternal Health News and Research

FY12 State Department funding request cannot be fulfilled, House Foreign Ops committee chair says

Opinions: Investing in science, technology; Indian public-private partnership for NTDs; U.S. global food security investments; Clinton's statements on PEPFAR; U.S. foreign aid; primary care

Mother and baby report card for NSW

Recent releases in Global Health

Lancet Infectious Diseases examines how resource gaps are creating barriers to reduce child mortality

House Republicans release CR proposing to cut $100B from FY11 budget

Politico looks at how proposed budget cuts could affect U.S. foreign aid, including global health funding

Recent releases in Global Health

NEPAD, GAIN sign Memorandum of Understanding to reduce malnutrition in Africa

U.N. commission to establish benchmarks for $40B maternal, child health initiative commitments

Eating less during early pregnancy impairs fetal brain development: Study

Opinions: Global health top foreign policy issue; Global food security; Opiate-substitution programs in Eastern Europe; Feed the future; Foreign aid lessons

Maternal depression adversely affects quality of life in children with epilepsy

Home births on the decline in UK: Midwives protest

New U.N. commission will track donors' pledges on maternal, child health

Health professionals discuss on reducing maternal, newborn mortality, morbidity

Health experts, mobile service providers discuss potential for mobile health in Africa at summit

African Ministerial Conference concludes with health priority commitment

Heartburn drugs safe in pregnancy: Study

Mother’s high-fat diet alters fetal genes that regulate circadian rhythm: Study

Industry Focus eBook - Forensics & toxicology (2nd edition) eBook

Advancing Neuroscience Research Through Collaboration and Patient-Centered Innovation

The impact of vibration on microscopy

How Omics Technologies Are Transforming Biological Research and Drug Discovery

Latest News