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Maternal Healthcare

Every day some 830 women die from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth. Many more have serious injuries or long-lasting consequences.  IPPF works around the world to improve maternal health through our clinics and outreach services and by training health workers, improving the availability of essential medicines and strengthening health systems.

Articles by Maternal Healthcare

Jessica Whitney Crowe
23 May 2022

Five ways to address gynaecological and obstetric violence in Europe (and why you should care)

Happy Mother’s Day…?   Some weeks ago, many of us around Europe celebrated our mothers, often as strong women, always sacrificing their interests for the greater good, the pillars and foundation of our society (with all the usual – often harmful - gender stereotypes annexed). But beyond the clichés and catchphrases, how much are we truly ready to respect and honour motherhood from Day One - or even better, from Day Zero? Is choosing to become a mother only to be celebrated as instrumental to counter the ‘demographic winter’ of a continent growing older? Or should we ensure - as society, politicians and advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) - that any (non)reproductive decision, including the experience of becoming mothers, is fully centred on choice, (self)love, respect, dignity and empowerment? Ahead of May 28th, International Day of Action for Women’s Health (intended as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being), I’d like to share some thoughts around the circumstances of what is stereotypically considered as one of the ‘most important’ and ‘happiest’ events in a woman’s life: giving birth. I’ll leave for another time the dismantling of common myths, idealizations and taboos around such a moment (and what comes after that), to concentrate here on another still-too-silenced subject: the violence that many women experience around childbirth, also called gynaecological and obstetric violence.

Jessica Whitney Crowe
23 May 2022

Five ways to address gynaecological and obstetric violence in Europe (and why you should care)

Happy Mother’s Day…?   Some weeks ago, many of us around Europe celebrated our mothers, often as strong women, always sacrificing their interests for the greater good, the pillars and foundation of our society (with all the usual – often harmful - gender stereotypes annexed). But beyond the clichés and catchphrases, how much are we truly ready to respect and honour motherhood from Day One - or even better, from Day Zero? Is choosing to become a mother only to be celebrated as instrumental to counter the ‘demographic winter’ of a continent growing older? Or should we ensure - as society, politicians and advocates for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) - that any (non)reproductive decision, including the experience of becoming mothers, is fully centred on choice, (self)love, respect, dignity and empowerment? Ahead of May 28th, International Day of Action for Women’s Health (intended as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being), I’d like to share some thoughts around the circumstances of what is stereotypically considered as one of the ‘most important’ and ‘happiest’ events in a woman’s life: giving birth. I’ll leave for another time the dismantling of common myths, idealizations and taboos around such a moment (and what comes after that), to concentrate here on another still-too-silenced subject: the violence that many women experience around childbirth, also called gynaecological and obstetric violence.