Forum for Safe Motherhood

Last month, a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report shared a shocking estimate: there will be 7 million more unwanted pregnancies in middle- and low-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. This spike is caused by 47 million women in such countries losing access to modern methods of contraception due to closure of many family planning (FP) services. This disruption of FP services could lead to the death of many women and children around the globe. In Pakistan, many health care professionals are ringing alarm bells about an increased risk to women’s reproductive health due to inaccessibility to FP services here. Primarily, the policy of lockdown is said to be the only solution for avoiding death and destruction during this pandemic. However, this lockdown led to the closure of many essential services like Outpatient Departments (OPDs) in the government hospitals and routine immunization activities. This closure has not only reduced the access of many women to reproductive

Photo: Reuters/File The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered fear worldwide and influenced all of us in some way or another. It is spreading rapidly, and is expected to cause major health, economic and societal implications globally. The pandemic has not just resulted in a global economic collapse and the disruption of normal life; it has also caused havoc on health care systems around the world. COVID-19 has shown us the shortcomings and inequities that have been hidden within our health systems worldwide, including lacks in the contraceptive manufacturing and supply chains, over-medicalization, health insurance limits, health care workers' insecurity, and much more. Lessons from the Past Previous public health crises have shown that the influence of an outbreak on Reproductive Health (RH) frequently goes unrecognized because the results are often not the direct outcome of the infection, but instead are the indirect consequence of stressed health care systems, delays in treatment, un

“How can we protect others unless we are protected ourselves?” A Community Midwife in Pakistan speaks out during the COVID-19 pandemic As told to Navroza Sher Ali, Forum for Safe Motherhood, Pakistan, an affiliate of the global White Ribbon Alliance, by a Community Midwife in Pakistan*, as part of the Safer Together: Respectful Maternity Care and COVID-19 campaign. In the old days, I used to take public transport to travel to and from the Rural Health Centre where I work as a Community Midwife in Nabisar, in Pakistan’s Sindh Province. However, since Pakistan’s lockdown to curb the pandemic’s death toll, all public transport has been closed. I now must arrange my own transport every day, for both going to the facility as well as for coming back home. You can imagine that this is not only very tiring and frustrating after a shift helping mothers and newborns survive pregnancy and childbirth, but also time consuming and expensive. The worst part is that, despite all the effort that I ma