Maternal Health Task Force
The Maternal Health Task Force strives to create a strong, well-informed and collaborative community of individuals focused on ending preventable maternal mortality and morbidity worldwide.
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Blog
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How to Avoid Predatory Journals: A Five Point Plan
Increasingly, I’m asked to advise and assist with the problem of predatory journals. While it’s probably only an annoying nuisance to many in the developed world, the increasing number of spam emails inviting articles and conference participation is beginning to feel like a potentially serious problem for developing world scientists and institutions. This demands action, as Richard Smith and I argue in a recent editorial in The BMJ. I recommend a five point plan for researchers to avoid predatory journals, which involves “doing your homework” to check the credibility of a journal or publisher, and always being sceptical of unknown journals. To distinguish legitimate from predatory journals, here are some useful sources of information—none of which are adequate on their own… read more
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Welcome to the New MHTF Website!
If you’ve visited us over the last few months, you may have noticed that we have a new look! The site, launched in November, was designed to load quickly and to…
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Twelve New Jobs in Maternal Health!
Every other Friday we bring to you some of the latest job openings in maternal and reproductive health. Check out the international postings below: Related Topics Last Updated Get the…
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New Lancet Commentary Makes Link Between Ebola and Women’s Health
The Ebola epidemic that is currently ravaging Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has devastated these nations and their health systems. While Ebola’s destruction has reached far beyond the health system into other critical sectors, it is without a doubt women and their children who are suffering the greatest burden of this disease and its effects. Today, The Lancet published a commentary that describes the socioeconomic, biologic and health systems connections between women’s health and the current Ebola epidemic. Ana Langer, Director of the MTHF, joined with her colleagues at ISGlobal and the Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça to author the paper, which describes the reasons why the majority of those infected with Ebola are women and how the outbreak has increased the obstacles women face in accessing the health system… read more
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Parasite Harms Reproductive Health and Increases HIV Risk
I spent many of my teenage years living in Malawi, enjoying swimming in beautiful Lake Malawi. Wind on to age 30, and I was struggling to get pregnant. Eventually, following illness, I was diagnosed with schistosomiasis and told that I had probably been infected for a while and that it might be affecting my fertility. So I took praziquantel—the only available drug against the parasite—and soon after I was pregnant. Whilst the links between urogenital schistosomiasis (also called female genital schistosomiasis), sub-fertility and HIV have become increasingly well-established, sadly lacking is a combined and robust health system that brings together HIV, sexual, reproductive, maternal health and neglected tropical disease communities to address and scale up treatment for urogenital schistosomiasis… read more
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Beyond New Facilities: Helping Politicians Understand Universal Health Coverage
As we left the facility, my colleague and I shared a glance and giggled. I couldn’t help but express my mind. “You know if this was to be [the] only facility within my jurisdiction, [even though] the health workers are very friendly, I might still consider a home birth,” I said. How can I, a health worker advocating for respectful maternity care (RMC) and facility delivery, talk like this you may ask? By visiting some facilities, you would come to a conclusion that homes are many times cleaner and better equipped than some health facilities… read more
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Involved in Medicine or Midwifery? Fill Out This Survey!
After convening at the International Society of Obstetric Medicine Conference last October, the Global Obstetric Medicine group endeavours now to understand the global landscape of Obstetric Medicine—particularly in low- and middle-income countries—in order…
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How Do You Translate Research Into Practice? Here Are Five Ways.
Over the last three weeks, we’ve heard from authors around the world who have seen concrete practice and policy results from their articles in our MHTF-PLOS Collection for Maternal Health. Our Translating Research into Practice Series featured these authors and the influence of their papers. Find a summary of the collection here… read more
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Women, Girls and Universal Health Coverage: Who Is Accountable?
The burden of ensuring safe delivery does not fall solely on the shoulders of women and girls, but falls on all of us. Whether we are policymakers, service providers, development workers, husbands, fathers or mothers-in-law, we can all make a difference. It is our responsibility to do so. As a society, we owe it to women to ensure they have a safe delivery and access to family planning information and services… read more
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Five Ways an Innovative Program Increased Facility Birth in Nigeria
The Midwives Service Scheme (MSS) was set up as a game changer to reduce maternal and child mortality so Nigeria could achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on maternal and child health (MCH). Since the publication of our PLoS Medicine paper, the MSS has subsequently been scaled up from 625 PHC facilities to an additional 375 facilities, providing 1,000 facilities across Nigeria with an additional 4,000 midwives and 1,000 community health extension workers. In addition, the MSS has influenced life-saving policy change which has increased facility deliveries and saved lives…read more