Reproductive Health News and Research

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U.N. SG Ban speaks about need for reproductive health care for young people, releases UNFPA report

In remarks to the U.N. Commission on Population and Development, which on Monday opened a week-long session in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "stressed the need to provide reproductive health care for young people, as well as give them access to the necessary information and the means to protect themselves from sexual abuse and violence," the U.N. News Centre reports.

25 Apr 2012

Access to family planning services important for adolescent women

In a Huffington Post "Global Motherhood" opinion piece, UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin writes, "It warms my heart to see that safe motherhood and women's reproductive health are finally being recognized as important development issues," but "millions of women in developing countries still lack even the most basic care during pregnancy," leading to maternal death and injury and hundreds of millions of women lack access to family planning services, including modern contraceptives.

20 Apr 2012

Viewpoints: Bishops find fault with GOP budget; Pelosi on court's role in health law

In February, the Catholic Church attempted to impose its opposition to birth control on its employees, upsetting Democrats and the left. This week, the Church is criticizing Republicans, acting in the highest tradition of its social mission by speaking out against spending cuts on programs for the poor.

20 Apr 2012

New Malawi President Joyce Banda offers women 'hope for a better future,' but donor support necessary

"On Saturday April 7th, Joyce Banda became Africa's second sitting female president," Lyndon Haviland, a senior strategy fellow at Aspen Global Health and Development, notes in this AlertNet opinion piece, writing, "President Banda offers women in Africa a second chance to experience women's leadership (Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's recent Nobel Peace Prize demonstrates what can happen when women lead) -- and for the women of Malawi that cannot come soon enough."

18 Apr 2012

Survey shows majority of Americans support women's right to access maternal, reproductive health care

In September 2010, "91 percent of Americans surveyed said they support the right for all women to have access to quality maternal and reproductive health care," PSI's "Healthy Lives" blog reports.

11 Apr 2012

Government, NGOs working to improve health services, education to prevent rising teenage pregnancy rate in Guatemala

"Teenage pregnancies are on the rise in Guatemala, along with the drop-out rate in schools, family breakdown and many other related social ills," Inter Press Service reports, adding that the "impoverished Central American country of 14 million people has an adolescent (under-20) birth rate of 114 per 1,000 women in rural areas, according to the National Mother and Child Health Survey for 2008-2009."

10 Apr 2012

Eggs developed from stem cells could change reproductive technology

Scientists have developed human egg cells that have been grown entirely in the laboratory from stem cells. These could be fertilized later this year in a development that will revolutionize fertility treatment and might even lead to a reversal of the menopause in older women.

9 Apr 2012

GYT campaign kicks off National STD Awareness Month

The fourth annual GYT: Get Yourself Tested campaign kicks off National STD Awareness Month (April) with new initiatives on-air, online, and on the ground at college campuses and in more than 5,000 health centers across the nation.

9 Apr 2012

Research roundup: Effects of health exchanges; Improving provider performance; Governors' 2013 budgets and Medicaid

Authors analyzed the cost and coverage implications of various scenarios of the health insurance exchanges that are called for in the health law. They predicted that about 1 million uninsured people in the state would get insurance through the exchanges and said that premiums in the small group and individual market would be lower than if the health law was not in effect.

7 Apr 2012

Astellas' mirabegron for OAB receives FDA advisory committee approval

Astellas Pharma US, Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc., announced today that the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration voted that the overall risk/benefit assessment supports approval of mirabegron for the treatment of overactive bladder.

6 Apr 2012

More must be done to increase access to family planning services for women in rural areas

"If family planning services, including information about reproductive health, access to birth control, and health care, were available to all women, the deaths of 100,000 women during childbirth could be prevented every year," Maeve Shearlaw, policy and advocacy coordinator for the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, writes in this post in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog.

5 Apr 2012

Government of Sweden announces sub-Saharan Africa strategy for HIV/AIDS, reproductive health

The government of Sweden on Monday announced "a regional strategy for regional efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and address sexual and reproductive health" in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a press release from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

5 Apr 2012

Advocates for Youth report examines youth policies within PEPFAR

A new report from Advocates for Youth "analyzes youth policies within the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), including its legislative authority, most recent five-year strategy, relevant guidance documents, and all 21 currently available PEPFAR country Partnership Frameworks."

4 Apr 2012

Computer model can predict malaria epidemics in India

Scientists from the University of Liverpool are working with computer modelling specialists in India to predict areas of the country that are at most risk of malaria outbreaks, following changes in monsoon rainfall.

3 Apr 2012

Family planning bill may get vote in Philippines congress, Bloomberg News reports

Bloomberg News examines family planning in the Philippines, where "one in five women of reproductive age ... have an unmet family planning need, the U.N. Population Fund says, leading to unintended pregnancies and population growth twice the Asian average."

30 Mar 2012

Elective induction more likely to result in complicated pregnancy

A University of Adelaide study has revealed that inducing labor in pregnant women when it's not medically necessary is more likely to result in complications at birth.

30 Mar 2012

States offer mixed legislative bag on abortion, birth control

Birth control and abortion legislation are making the rounds at state capitols. An abortion bill in Georgia was stopped Tuesday while Idaho backed away from its own pre-abortion ultrasound bill. Missouri advanced a bill to let some employers opt-out of providing coverage for contraception.

29 Mar 2012

First Edition: March 28, 2012

Today's headlines recap yesterday's Supreme Court action related to the constitutionality of the individual mandate and set the scene for day 3 of the oral arguments, which will tackle issues of severalbility and questions about the health law's Medicaid expansion.

28 Mar 2012

Morning after pills difficult for teenagers to procure

Quite a few U.S. pharmacies may give teen girls incorrect information over the phone about whether they can get the morning-after pill. The pill is a form of emergency contraception taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy without a prescription, a new study suggests.

27 Mar 2012

U.S. has ability to help curb effects of HIV among women at home, abroad

The U.S. has "been working toward integrating HIV, sexual and reproductive health, and gender-based violence services for women overseas," and "[i]t's time we did the same at home," Serra Sippel, president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity, writes in this Huffington Post "Impact" blog post.