By Sara Dahlen, Dean Connolly, Isra Arif, Muhammad Hyder Junejo, Susan Bewley and Catherine Meads Doctors trying to help their patients are bombarded with too much and often conflicting information. Well-developed clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) can help busy practitioners ground their real-world frontline care in properly considered, best available knowledge gained from high quality research. […]
Latest articles
Menstrual blood: no longer just a waste product
By Dr. Sara Naseri, Dr. Ryan Brewster and Professor Paul D. Blumenthal For decades, glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) has been the diagnostic and prognostic standard for primary management of diabetes mellitus (DM).1 It serves as an index of long-term glycemic control and a predictive indicator of preventable micro- and macrovascular complications, making routine monitoring an essential […]
Abortion Bereavement Leave is Part of Abortion Care
By Dr Nathan Hodson Last week, changes to the bereavement policy for employees at the City of Portland, Oregon, emerged. Under the new bereavement leave policy, employees of the city government are eligible for bereavement leave following pregnancy loss, and pregnancy loss is defined broadly to include termination of pregnancy. This reflects a striking evolution […]
The indirect costs of the pandemic: disruption to contraception services and rise in unplanned pregnancies in the UK
By Dr Neerujah Balachandren and Dr Jennifer Hall One year into the pandemic, the U.N. Sexual and Reproductive Health Agency (UNFPA) estimated 12 million women in low and middle-income countries may have been unable to access family planning services. 1 It has been estimated that as many as 1.4 million unplanned pregnancies may have occurred […]
Keeping race on the agenda shouldn’t continue to fall on the shoulders of Black and minoritised people
By Rianna Raymond-Williams and Uzochi Nwaosu “The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.” — Ijeoma Oluo Just over a year ago, I […]
What constitutes a ‘positive’ contraceptive experience?
By CERT (Contraception Education Reform Team) CERT (Contraception Education Reform Team) are a student-led policy research group based at the University of Edinburgh. We aim to improve contraceptive care and education for all contraceptive users through research and policy-based change. Our research team, comprising of multidisciplinary university students from across the UK and Europe, was […]
“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 […]
Exploring the toxic relationship between mental illness and miscarriage
By Ray Jerram Dr Nathan Hodson Miscarriage and mental illness are common but often hidden life experiences. Emerging evidence reveals the toxic symbiotic relationship between these two stigmatized parts of life. To some extent their connection may be unsurprising, considering how we increasingly recognise the pervasiveness of psychiatric issues, as well as the trauma of […]
Action to reduce maternal health inequalities
By Dr Shohaib Ali More than one quarter of the 600,000 babies born annually in England and Wales are to mothers from ethnic minority groups. The Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths showed that in 2016-18, compared to their white counterparts, the rate of women dying during up to one year after pregnancy is more than […]
Postal semen testing after vasectomy increases compliance
By Dr. Melanie Atkinson Vasectomy offers non-reversible contraception to men but efficacy is not immediate and requires examination of a semen sample post-vasectomy to confirm successful occlusion of the vasa deferentia so that other methods of contraception can be discontinued. This post-vasectomy semen analysis (PVSA) was, in the past, always completed on fresh specimens examined […]