Maternal Health

Women’s empowerment related to pregnancy and childbirth: introduction to special issue

Ndola Prata
Paula Tavrow
Ushma Upadhyay
2017

Empowerment is widely acknowledged as a process by which those who have been disempowered are able to increase their self-efficacy, make life-enhancing decisions, and obtain control over resources [1,2,...

“My job is to get pregnant women to the hospital”: a qualitative study of the role of traditional birth attendants in the distribution of misoprostol to prevent post-partum haemorrhage in two provinces in Mozambique

Ndola Prata
Karen Hobday
Jennifer Hulme
Caroline Homer
Páscoa Zualo Wate
Suzanne Belton
2018

Background: Post-partum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal deaths in Mozambique. In 2015, the Mozambican Ministry of Health launched the National Strategy for the Prevention of Post-Partum Haemorrhage at the Community Level. The strategy included the distribution of misoprostol to women in advance at antenatal care and via Traditional Birth Attendants who directly administer the medication. The study explores the role of Traditional Birth Attendants in the misoprostol program and the views of women who used misoprostol to prevent post-partum haemorrhage.

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Continuous Labor Support and Person-Centered Maternity Care: A Cross-Sectional Study with Women in Rural Kenya

2022

Objective: This study assessed whether having continuous support during labor is associated with better person-centered maternity care (PCMC) among women in rural Kenya.

Methods: Data are from a cross-sectional survey with women aged 15-49 years who delivered in the 9 weeks preceding survey completion (N = 865). PCMC was operationalized using a validated 13-item scale, with a summative score developed from responses that capture dignity and respect, communication and autonomy, and supportive care from providers (excluding support from a lay...

Maternal and Infant Health Outcomes in US-Born and Non-US-Born Black Pregnant People in the US.

Mariah Jiles
Ndola Prata
Kim G. Harley
2024

Importance With disparate Black maternal health outcomes in the US and a steadily expanding non–US-born Black population, it is beneficial to investigate Black maternal health outcomes by country of origin.

Objective To compare the prevalence of maternal morbidity and infant birth outcomes between US-born and non–US-born Black populations in the US.

Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study included all registered hospital births in the US from the 2021 National Vital...

Bhavya Joshi, a UC Berkeley Public Health doctoral student, one of the Bixby Center's fellows of reproductive health was in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp supporting women's health

March 27, 2025

Using community-based participatory research, Bhavya Joshi collaborates with refugee women to address maternal health crises, gender-based violence, and family planning. Her work highlights urgent healthcare gaps and empowers communities to shape solutions, aiming to reach marginalized populations first and drive sustainable policy change. Click here to see her and her teams with refugees to support women's health.

RU-486. Termination of a pregnancy in the privacy of one’s home

Malcolm Potts
1989

PIP: This is an outline of the therapeutic uses of RU-486, followed by clarification of the term “contragestion”, and analyses of the theological, legal, and corporate-political issues confronting acceptance of this drug. RU-486 is a computer-designed progesterone antagonist with no known side effects other than those predicted by its endocrinological action. It has been used to terminate pregnancy (with prostaglandin) up to 41 days amenorrhea, and has been shown to terminate pregnancy with fetal demise, to cause luteolysis in the late menstrual cycle, to facilitate management of ectopic...

Religion, family planning, and abortion

Malcolm Potts
1993

Letter to the Lancet

Published in Lancet, 9 25 1993, 342(8874):808

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The impact of maternal health improvement on perinatal survival: cost-effective alternatives

Julia Walsh
A Measham
C Feifer C
Paul Gertler
1994

Each year, an estimated half million women die from complications related to child birth either during pregnancy, delivery or within 42 days afterwards. When pregnant women have complications, their infants are at greater risk of becoming ill, permanently disabled or dying. For every maternal death, there are at least 20 infant deaths: stillbirths, neonatal or postneonatal deaths. Altogether, an estimated 7 million infants each year die perinatally (stillborn or deaths within the first week of life). Low cost, feasible, and effective intervention strategies include: a) improved family...

Safety implications of transferring the oral contraceptive from prescription-only to over-the-counter status

Malcolm Potts
Colleen Denny
1995

The idea of making oral contraceptives available without prescription has a long history, and has been recently revived in the US and the UK. High dose oral contraceptives have generally been replaced by low dose formulations and, subsequently, most cardiovascular risks have been reduced and a protection against ovarian and uterine cancers has been consistently demonstrated. Oral contraceptive compliance, however, continues to be a problem, but there is no reason to assume that wise practice would be any more or less if oral contraceptives were available over-the-counter (OTC). Some...

The most pressing issue

Malcolm Potts
2000

The article discusses the role of medicine profession in supporting access to family planning

Published in J R Soc Med, 1 2000, 93(1):1-2

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