By Jane Meyrick, Michelle Cutland and Rae Adams Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) is increasingly recognised and the impact often lifelong. With at least 15% of girls/young women and 5% of boys/young men experiencing some form of sexual abuse before the age of 16 years the role of sexual health is crucial. Sexual Health Follow-up (SHFU) […]
Category: Clinical practice
You’re invited – jump into implementation science and quality improvement
By Cati Brown-Johnson, Sonia Rose Harris & Lisa Goldthwaite In the February issue of the Journal, Hofmeyr and colleagues describe a postpartum family planning quality improvement initiative in a large public hospital in Botswana. Their initiative aimed to improve postpartum contraceptive counseling and provision, particularly efforts to integrate intrauterine device services into clinical practice while […]
Women’s needs for lifestyle risk reduction engagement during the interconception period
By Sharon James, Jessica Moulton, Anisa Assifi, Jessica Botfield, Kirsten Black, Mark Hanson & Danielle Mazza The potential impact of lifestyle risks such as smoking, unhealthy diet, unsafe alcohol consumption, and inadequate exercise, increases with the mother’s age and parity. While lifestyle risks are responsible for many chronic conditions, changing lifestyle behaviours during pregnancy […]
The importance of using inclusive language in medical practice
By Ness Cooper Maintaining a safe, inclusive environment is essential when seeing patients in any medical setting. Some patients may avoid contact with healthcare services if they perceive that interactions will be uncomfortable, hostile, or likely to trigger psychosexual factors. This is particularly true of sexual and reproductive health, given the intimate nature of […]
“As the COVID-19 pandemic shifts the architecture of choice in abortion care, we must continue to accommodate patient preferences.”
By Rebecca Blaylock and Dr Shelly Makleff Our new research1 shows what factors contribute to shaping people’s preferences for the sort of abortion they want. For example, patients may be influenced by a previous good abortion experience they hope to emulate again, they may be worried about privacy issues in shared housing, or they might […]
Reflections on a Silver Lining
By Dr. Kate Campbell In our paper, ‘Our COVID-19 cloud silver lining’: the initiation and progress of postnatal contraception services during the COVID-19 pandemic in a UK maternity hospital, we describe our experience of starting an immediate postnatal contraceptive service during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The paper demonstrated how an […]
New telemedicine abortion research puts patient voices front and centre
By Louise McCudden ‘Acceptability of no-test medical abortion provided via telemedicine: analysis of patient-reported outcomes’ is the latest in a growing body of evidence highlighting the benefits of telemedicine abortion. This paper by Dr Jonathan Lord, Chelsey Porter and Kathryn Church from MSI Reproductive Choices UK describes not only the clinical benefits but also patient […]
There’s the IUD, but can it be provided conveniently to women after medical abortion?
By Deborah Constant, Margit Endler, Daniel Grossman, Gregory Petro and Malika Patel Termed “forgettable contraception” as it only requires attention every 5-10 years, the intrauterine device (IUD) is a highly effective long-acting method and has potential to liberate women and girls from the hassle of frequent method administration required by short term methods. In high […]
Questioning Colonial Legacies in Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Interventions
by Kayla Beare Contraception has improved the lives of countless since entering the mainstream in the 1960s. However, like most facets of sexual and reproductive health, contraception is imbued in a history of colonialism. As someone who was born and raised in a previously colonised country, the presence of colonial legacies in global health have […]
Transforming abortion access beyond the pandemic: patient experiences with at-home medical abortion through telemedicine in Australia
By Laura Fix,1 Jane W Seymour,1 Monisha Vaid Sandhu,2 Jacquie O’Brien,2 Catriona Melville,2 Danielle Mazza,3 Terri-Ann Thompson1 Telemedicine delivery of medical abortion is common and safe In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has emerged as key to sustaining access to essential reproductive health care services. Medical abortion care provided via telemedicine has been […]