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Biomedical subjects

Marge Berer

Publications and source records attributed to Marge Berer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Dual protection: more needed than practised or understood.

Although non-barrier contraceptive use has become a global norm, unprotected sex in relation to sexually transmitted infections remains the norm almost everywhere. Dual protection is protection from unwanted pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and is a form of safer sex for heterosexual couples that is more needed than practised or understood. This paper draws on a review of the literature in family planning, obstetrics and gynaecology, and AIDS-related journals from 1998 to early 2005. Definitions of dual protection, found mainly in family planning literature, are very narrow. Condoms remain the mainstay of dual protection, but the aim of this paper is to provide an expanded list of dual protection methods to show that there is a range of options. These include non-penetrative sex and the increasing use of condoms with the back-up of emergency contraception on the part of young people. The fact that people may fail to use dual protection consistently and correctly is not a valid reason not to promote it. It is never too late for those providing family planning and STI/HIV prevention services to start promoting condoms and dual protection. In the long-term, the development of highly efficacious and highly acceptable methods of dual protection is an urgent research priority, starting with a wider range of condoms that will appeal to more people.

Condoms↗
PubMed2005

Medical abortion: issues of choice and acceptability.

Although more than one method of abortion has been available for many years, in most countries the provider chooses the method and may be skilled in one method only. This paper discusses choice and acceptability of medical abortion from the perspective of both women and abortion providers and argues that choice of method is important for both. Safety, efficacy, number of visits, how the method works, how long it takes for the abortion to be complete and cost all affect acceptability. Medical abortion is considered more natural because it happens in women's own bodies and can take place at home before nine weeks of pregnancy; surgical abortion with vacuum aspiration is simple and over quickly. Unless the costs of both methods are similar, however, women and providers will tend towards whichever is the cheaper option, limiting choice. Medical abortion is effective from when a woman misses her period through 24 weeks of pregnancy, and more women and providers need to be made aware of this. In legally restricted situations, complications tend to be less serious and easier to treat with early medical abortion than after unsafe invasive methods. Ideally, both medical and surgical methods should be available, but each can be provided without the other.

Abortifacient Agents↗
PubMed2004

National laws and unsafe abortion: the parameters of change.

Unsafe abortion and associated morbidity and mortality in women are completely avoidable. This paper reports on an analysis of the association between legal grounds for abortion in national laws and unsafe abortion, drawing on an unpublished study and using estimates of the incidence of and mortality from unsafe abortion using information from the sources used to estimate the incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2000. Although legal grounds alone may not reflect the way in which the law is applied, nor the quality of services offered, a clear pattern was found in more than 160 countries indicating that where legislation allows abortion on broad indications, there is a lower incidence of unsafe abortion and much lower mortality from unsafe abortions, as compared to legislation that greatly restricts abortion. The data also show that most abortions become safe mainly or only where women's reasons for abortion, and the legal grounds for abortion coincide. This is a compelling public health argument for making abortion legal on the broadest possible grounds. A wide range of actions have formed part of national campaigns for safe, legal abortion over the past century, covering law reform, provision of safe services, ensuring quality of care, training for providers and information and support for women. Safe abortion is an essential health service for women, as essential for sexual and reproductive health as safe contraception, and safe pregnancy and delivery care. In spite of sometimes powerful opposition and terrible setbacks, the public health imperative is gaining ground in many parts of the globe.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed2004

HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health: intersections and implications for national programmes.

HIV and AIDS have a myriad of effects on sexual and reproductive health and rights, and sexual and reproductive health services are critical for women and men with HIV and AIDS. Yet there has been a dearth of visible, in-depth mainstream attention to the links between sexual and reproductive health and prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS since the early 1990s among major stakeholders internationally. This paper argues that access to essential sexual and reproductive health care should be provided in HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment programmes, and appropriate forms of prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS should be included in all sexual and reproductive health services as a public health priority, particularly in sex education, family planning and abortion services, pregnancy-related care, sexually transmitted infection (STI) services and services addressing sexual violence. The paper analyzes existing barriers to linking and integrating these services, e.g. at country level due to the traditional training of health workers to implement vertical programmes, separate sources of funding for National AIDS Control Programmes and sexual and reproductive health services, and in international donor programme and UN agency structures. This paper calls for leadership to be exercised by donors, all the UN agencies working together, governments, health service managers and providers, NGOs and advocates in both fields to develop and implement these linkages at country level. Finally, it is crucial that UNAIDS, WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and those working to reach the targets set by the Millennium Development Goals come on board in these efforts.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed2003

Traditional birth attendants in developing countries cannot be expected to carry out HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment activities.

Pregnancy and birth, fertility and fertility regulation are all greatly affected by the exigencies of HIV and AIDS, and vice versa. Women and infants can only benefit if the respective policymakers, researchers and service providers in sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, particularly those involved in prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, gain greater knowledge of each others' expertise and seek to integrate the best of both into the care they each offer. The growth in access to antiretroviral treatment for mothers as well as infants, including during pregnancy and the breastfeeding period, makes such efforts even more timely and crucial. Yet there are worrying signs that specialists in both camps are making inappropriate policy and service delivery recommendations based on too little knowledge of each others' patches. As an example of this problem, this article discusses and rejects a recommendation in a recent BMJ article that traditional birth attendants could be trained to carry out HIV prevention and possibly provide HIV tests and drugs for prevention of HIV transmission during home deliveries in developing countries.

Communicable Disease Control↗
PubMed2003

The contribution of sexual and reproductive health services to the fight against HIV/AIDS: a review.

Approximately 80% of HIV cases are transmitted sexually and a further 10% perinatally or during breastfeeding. Hence, the health sector has looked to sexual and reproductive health programmes for leadership and guidance in providing information and counselling to prevent these forms of transmission, and more recently to undertake some aspects of treatment. This paper reviews and assesses the contributions made to date by sexual and reproductive health services to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, mainly by services for family planning, sexually transmitted infections and antenatal and delivery care. It also describes other sexual and reproductive health problems experienced by HIV-positive women, such as the need for abortion services, infertility services and cervical cancer screening and treatment. This paper shows that sexual and reproductive health programmes can make an important contribution to HIV prevention and treatment, and that STI control is important both for sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS control. It concludes that more integrated programmes of sexual and reproductive health care and STI/HIV/AIDS control should be developed which jointly offer certain services, expand outreach to new population groups, and create well-functioning referral links to optimize the outreach and impact of what are to date essentially vertical programmes.

Breast Feeding↗