"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
Women's Health Forum / Affinity Group
This space will serve as a place for those of us interested in women's health: reproductive health, maternal health, and human rights.
We want to make a difference in the lives of women around the world. Feel free to join us as we brainstorm, organize our ideas, and mobilize to create change.
Women around the world face obstacles and challenges to live healthy lives:
"While women and men share many similar health challenges, the differences are such that the health of women deserves particular attention. Women generally live longer than men because of both biological and behavioural advantages. But in some settings, notably in parts of Asia, these advantages are overridden by gender-based discrimination so that female life expectancy at birth is lower than or equal to that of males.
Moreover, women’s longer lives are not necessarily healthy lives. There are conditions that only women experience and whose potentially negative impact only they suffer. Some of these – such as pregnancy and childbirth – are not diseases, but biological and social processes that carry health risks and require health care. Some health challenges affect both women and men,but have a greater or different impact on women and so require responses that are tailored specifically to women’s needs. Other conditions affect women and men more or less equally, but women face greater difficulties in getting the health care they need. Furthermore, genderbased inequalities – for example in education, income and employment – limit the ability of girls and women to protect their health."
Moreover, women’s longer lives are not necessarily healthy lives. There are conditions that only women experience and whose potentially negative impact only they suffer. Some of these – such as pregnancy and childbirth – are not diseases, but biological and social processes that carry health risks and require health care. Some health challenges affect both women and men,but have a greater or different impact on women and so require responses that are tailored specifically to women’s needs. Other conditions affect women and men more or less equally, but women face greater difficulties in getting the health care they need. Furthermore, genderbased inequalities – for example in education, income and employment – limit the ability of girls and women to protect their health."
Views: 86
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Comment by Yumna Moosa on March 15, 2010 at 7:29pm
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Recently read an article about "Setting priorities for safe motherhood interventions in resource-scarce settings" and they found that:
family planning + safe abortion + antenatal care (with misoprostol*) = lots of moms alive with little money spent
If we're looking at a broader (and more preventative) intervention, this approach also makes sense.
I agree with Uzoma that it all starts with education and empowerment. But to change the current situation, we need to go at it from all levels - 1) empower women/promote reproductive health 2) prevent unwanted pregnancies and pregnancy related illness/injury 3) treat problems that cause mothers to die.
LifeWraps, as part of a continuum of care for mothers suffering from severe bleeding, seem to be a very effective way to approach point 3. Anyone with ideas as to how to incorporate points 1 and 2 into our project?
*a drug that helps the uterus contract after birth, preventing the mother from bleeding.
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Comment by Comelia Tang on March 15, 2010 at 8:01pm
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I saw the lifewrap video and please pardon my ignorance, I didn't know that pregnancy could bring about so much complications for women. I would love to contribute, but for now I will be keeping track on this blog and learn more about it. =]
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Comment by Jenn on March 15, 2010 at 11:26pm
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Welcome, Dr. Miller! It's lovely to hear from you here and thanks so much for offering to be a resource for our discussion! I've been through almost your wh*** website, including your archived newsletters; it's a really great resource! I shared one of your videos on here a while back and it's definitely the most viewed post I have; I think there's a lot of interest here and people wanting to contribute in some way.
Yumna, I think you bring up three really good points. Just as the LifeWrap can contribute to a continuum of care medically, we also need to create a continuum of support addressing socioeconomic issues as well as health to make a broader impact. I'm really interested in combining public health initiatives with other types of program modalities, and I think this is an instance where it could be a good approach.
Empowering women/girls can take many different forms, some of which Uzoma hit on: rights awareness trainings, targeted income generation skills building, microcredit enterprises, literacy programs, nutrition education, general and preventative health services, and as Yumna mentioned, access to and education on reproductive health measures (and I'm sure a hundred other ways as well).
I think one way we could maybe be helpful - rather than reinventing the wheel since all of these things exist - is to potentially create a formalized mechanism for linking different initiatives targeting women. A tangible way for these different program-types to network and provide supported referrals to each other's services could be very useful. I think this could play out in a variety of different ways (community networking events, M&E forms, the creation of coalitions, etc.). I'd be interested to hear what others' thoughts are.
I've also been playing around with the idea of using data as way to link different aspects of women's health. (Yumna's points 1, 2 and 3!) My thought is that there could be a set of indicators that would give us a picture of women's "health" (health in the broad sense of the word) in a community. Since different programs would need to work together across modalities to see gaps in service coverage, it could be a tangible way to facilitate collaboration. I think there's a lot of potential drawbacks to that (an obvious one being that it relies on organizations to have M&E systems in place) but I think it could also be a tool for eventually creating more holistic funding streams as well. What do you all think?
@Uzoma, I'd love to hear more about your ideas for advocacy since that's an area I'm not very well versed in!
@Michelle, I'll keep the work up on the contact sheet! Whenever you write post about the event, could you make a link here so we can all read it? :)
@Cornelia, we're super glad to have you as part of the conversation! I'll work on putting some more information links at the top of the page for folks who are interested in reading more. :)
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1) there are all these amazing ideas floating around, but if we're really going to make a go at realising these ideas, we almost need to set some sort of limit on what we think we can do - at least in the beginning.
do we want to focus on reproductive health education and empowerment?
do we want to save bleeding mothers' lives?
i know i'm oversimplifying, but i think we need to start setting boundaries if anything is actually going to happen... sorry to be a mood killer :(
2) i work with a student-led volunteer organisation based at the university of cape town called SHAWCO (see www.shawco.org for more information, but bear in mind that it's a little outdated because we couldn't find anyone to update it for free!), and we currently have 2 sectors: health and education.
amongst other things, the health sector runs night-time clinics staffed by senior medical students overseen by qualified doctors. there may be an opportunity for a partnership here - at least in terms of education/health promotion.
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Comment by Shakwei Mbindyo on March 16, 2010 at 6:33pm
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Every minute, at least 1 woman dies from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth – that means 529 000 women a year. In addition, for every woman who dies in childbirth, around 20 more suffer injury, infection or disease – approximately 10 million women each year.
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Comment by Suellen Miller on March 16, 2010 at 8:52pm
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I am very impressed with your enthusiasm and creativity for doing something solid for women around the world, esp. using LifeWraps which really does save lives. I think MAKING wraps (scarves, shawls) for LifeWraps is absolutely brilliant.!!!! We might also try to appeal to very wealthy women/stars to donate their wraps for LifeWraps and hold online auction or ???? sell on Ebay?? just thinking out loud. Finally, we at LifeWraps need to get one of our younger, web and internet savvy staff working with you guys.
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Michelle your ideas are great, let's have a skype call soon and figure out how to move forward.
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Love the ideas and I love the idea of Skakira performing!!!
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Hi all! I'm excited to hear about all the progress being made! Michelle, I love your ideas - they're a great balance between being real and practical while also far-reaching.
While I was traveling yesterday I worked on two things. I started knitting a scarf for the event (which I can assure you will be one-of-a-kind, though I'm not sure in a good way. Michelle, can I get it to you before I leave DC?). I also wrote down an idea for a potential initiative that combines the ideas we've been discussing here. (It was a busy flight!) I put it in a post rather than making another monstrous comment again. It's just an idea and it won't bother me if this isn't one that sticks, but if you have a chance please take a look: http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/reproductive-health-idea
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Yumna, I think you bring up a really good point that we should maybe discuss more. One of the major challenges I think is balancing short- and long- term priorities. I think the more comprehensive we are, the more sustainable and far-reaching our outcomes will be. One big reason people have poor health is of course because of inequality and unequal distribution of resources. That's why I am in favor of integrating perspectives such as labor and education into our ideas.
However, I can totally see where this might hinder us making a step forward, and that's something we need definitely need to challenge. After all women are dying and we want to make a difference!
Let's keep this topic going! What are people's thoughts on this?
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