As part of a larger study on donor-assisted conception, this paper reports research which explored the ways in which women who have donated or received eggs or embryos interpret such donations in the context of motherhood. Narrative analysis of women's accounts revealed that egg and embryo donations are not interpreted as incompatible with motherhood; that they may be explained as contributing ...

Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the world, as is reflected in its health indicators (Eckert 2002). According to the Demographic and Health Survey III (DNS/Macro 2006), Guinea’s maternal mortality ratio is 980 for 100,000 live births, and it has a neonatal mortality rate of 39 for 1,000 live births. In 1997, the government of Guinea, in collaboration with UNICEF, set up a project to re...

OBJECTIVE To assess the quality of recording critical events in the intrapartum period in Kakamega Provincial General Hospital (PGHK). DESIGN Retrospective comparative study. SETTING Provincial General Hospital, Kakamega, the referral hospital for Western Province, Kenya. PARTICIPANTS Two hundred women admitted at the labour ward during the six-month period between 1st September 2000 and ...

BACKGROUND In 2000, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set targets for reducing child mortality and improving maternal health by 2015. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the results of a new education and referral system for antenatal/intrapartum care as a strategy to reduce the rates of Cesarean sections (C-sections) and maternal/perinatal mortality. METHODS DESIGN Cross-sectional study. ...

Introduction: Promoting women’s health improves not only individual health but also the health of the family, community and the nation. As per Safe Motherhood Initiative all pregnant women must receive basic but professional antenatal care (ANC). However safe motherhood is still a dream in India as well as in the third world countries. Mothers who had not received good quality ANC were found to...

The motherhood wage penalty is today probably the largest obstacle to progress in gender equality at work. Using matched employer-employee data from Norway (1980–97), a country with public policies that promote combining family and career, we investigate (a) whether the penalty arises from differential pay by employers or from sorting of employees on occupations and establishments, and (b) chan...

BACKGROUND Health insurance premium exemptions for pregnant women are a strategy to increase coverage of maternal health services in sub-Saharan countries. We examine health insurance registration among pregnant women before or after the introduction of a premium exemption, and test whether registration increases utilization of maternal health services. METHODS Data were drawn from a retrospe...