Special issue on women’s health, gender and empowerment

Women’s empowerment related to pregnancy and childbirth: introduction to special issue

Authors: Ndola Prata, Paula Tavrow and Ushma Upadhyay

From erasure to opportunity: a qualitative study of the experiences of transgender men around pregnancy and recommendations for providers

Some transgender men retain their uterus, get pregnant, and give birth. However, societal attitudes about gender have erected barriers to openly being pregnant and giving birth as a transgender man. Little res...

Authors: Alexis Hoffkling, Juno Obedin-Maliver and Jae Sevelius

Composite measures of women’s empowerment and their association with maternal mortality in low-income countries

Maternal mortality has declined significantly since 1990. While better access to emergency obstetrical care is partially responsible, women’s empowerment might also be a contributing factor. Gender equality co...

Authors: Chiao-Wen Lan and Paula Tavrow

Randomized controlled pilot of a group antenatal care model and the sociodemographic factors associated with pregnancy-related empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa

The links between empowerment and a number of health-related outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa have been documented, but empowerment related to pregnancy is under-investigated. Antenatal care (ANC) is the entry p...

Authors: Crystal L. Patil, Carrie S. Klima, Sebalda C. Leshabari, Alana D. Steffen, Heather Pauls, Molly McGown and Kathleen F. Norr

First birth and the trajectory of women’s empowerment in Egypt

Women’s empowerment is often used to explain changes in reproductive behavior, but no consideration is given to how reproductive events can shape women’s empowerment over time. Fertility may cause changes in w...

Authors: Goleen Samari

A systematic review of concepts related to women’s empowerment in the perinatal period and their associations with perinatal depressive symptoms and premature birth

The perinatal period, which we here define as pregnancy and the first year postpartum, is a time in women’s lives that involves significant physiological and psychosocial change and adjustment, including chang...

Authors: Esmeralda R. Garcia and Ilona S. Yim

The role of human rights litigation in improving access to reproductive health care and achieving reductions in maternal mortality

Improving maternal health, reducing global maternal mortality, and working toward universal access to reproductive health care are global priorities for United Nations agencies, national governments, and civil...

Authors: Jennifer Templeton Dunn, Katherine Lesyna and Anna Zaret

Do the status and empowerment of mothers predict their daughters’ reproductive outcomes?

Despite increased recognition of the important influences of women’s status and empowerment on social and health outcomes for women and their families, there are few investigations that examine the extent to w...

Authors: Jessica D. Gipson and Dawn M. Upchurch

Abortion as empowerment: reproductive rights activism in a legally restricted context

This paper analyzes the strategies used by activist health professionals in Argentina who justify providing abortion despite legal restrictions on the procedure. These “insider activists” make a case for abort...

Authors: Julia McReynolds-Pérez

Examining the mechanisms by which women’s status and empowerment affect skilled birth attendant use in Senegal: a structural equation modeling approach

Despite the reduction in maternal deaths globally, maternal mortality rates remain unacceptably high, particularly in some regions of the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, maternal mortality rates have even increa...

Authors: Kyoko Shimamoto and Jessica D. Gipson

A review of measures of women’s empowerment and related gender constructs in family planning and maternal health program evaluations in low- and middle-income countries

Evidence suggests that gender-integrated interventions, which actively seek to identify and integrate activities that address the role of gender norms and dynamics, improve family planning (FP) and maternal he...

Authors: Mahua Mandal, Arundati Muralidharan and Sara Pappa

Women’s empowerment and experiences of mistreatment during childbirth in facilities in Lucknow, India: results from a cross-sectional study

Recent evidence has found widespread reports of women experiencing abuse, neglect, discrimination, and poor interpersonal care during childbirth around the globe. Empowerment may be a protective mechanism for ...

Authors: Nadia Diamond-Smith, Emily Treleaven, Nirmala Murthy and May Sudhinaraset

Conceptualizing pathways linking women’s empowerment and prematurity in developing countries

Globally, prematurity is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5. Many efforts have focused on clinical approaches to improve the survival of premature babies. There is a need, however, to ex...

Authors: Patience A. Afulani, Molly Altman, Joseph Musana and May Sudhinaraset