Abigail Higgins, The Lily
Mar. 22, 2021
When the world ground to a halt a year ago, millions of women saw their contraceptive supplies dry up and their routes to replenish them cut off.
New research by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that 12 million women couldn’t get the family planning services they needed, leading to an estimated 1.4 million unintended pregnancies.
Athira Nortajuddin
15 March 2021
Just last year when over half of humanity was confined to their homes due to COVID-19 preventive measures, Karex, a Malaysian contraceptives manufacturer predicted a global condom shortage as the pandemic shuttered factories and disrupted supply chains.
This came as Malaysia, one of the world’s top rubber producers and a major source of condoms, imposed a nationwide lockdown – known locally as the Movement Control Order (MCO). The MCO was implemented sometime in mid-March 2020 for several months.
Continued: https://theaseanpost.com/article/less-contraception-use-pandemic
By Julie Turkewitz and Isayen Herrera, New York Times
February 20, 2021
SAN DIEGO DE LOS ALTOS, Venezuela — The moment Johanna Guzmán, 25, discovered she was going to have her sixth child, she began to sob, crushed by the idea of bringing another life into a nation in such decay.
For years, as Venezuela spiraled deeper into an economic crisis, she and her husband had scoured clinics and pharmacies for any kind of birth control, usually in vain. They had a third child. A fourth. A fifth.
September 9, 2020
By Deekshita Ramanarayanan
“Achieving true progress on sexual and reproductive health and rights requires a comprehensive approach and a commitment to tackling deeply entrenched inequities and injustices of which marginalized communities continue to bear the brunt,” said Dr. Herminia Palacio, President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute. She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event where speakers analyzed findings from the Guttmacher Institute on the state of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally.
The current COVID-19 pandemic threatens to roll back progress made towards SRHR. “A growing body of evidence shows that the pandemic is already limiting access to sexual and reproductive health care worldwide, especially in low- and middle- income countries,” said Sarah Barnes, Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at the Wilson Center. These impacts go unrecognized because they are indirect results of health system disruption rather than the direct impact of a virus, said Zara Ahmed, Associate Director of Federal Issues at the Guttmacher Institute.
Continued: https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/09/meeting-womens-modern-contraceptive-yield-dramatic-benefit/
By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and CARA ANNA, Associated Press
19 August 2020
NEW DELHI -- Millions of women and girls globally have lost access to contraceptives and abortion services because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now the first widespread measure of the toll says India with its abrupt, months-long lockdown has been hit especially hard.
Several months into the pandemic, many women now have second-trimester pregnancies because they could not find care in time.
Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/baby-boom-ahead-covid-19-millions-women-care-72460772
28 July 2020
Sarah Burgess
Abortion services have seen an increased demand during lockdown as more than 200 women across Norfolk have struggled to access contraceptive care.
The coronavirus pandemic has meant many women’s preferred choice of contraception is unavailable - such as the fitting of long-acting contraception like implants and coils.
Continued: https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/health/abortions-and-contraceptive-care-coronavirus-lockdown-1-6765738
By Miriam Berger
July 15, 2020
It has been five months — a bit more than half the length of an average pregnancy — since the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic.
With millions of people cut off from reproductive health care and stuck at home, some experts predicted that the crisis would create the conditions for a baby boom, at least in some countries. Other analysts predicted a baby bust, driven by economic and social instability.
Experts hail allocation in family planning, but wary of planning
July 06, 2020
Nilima Jahan
The budget allocation in health and family welfare has seen a steady increase in the past few years. This year, the amount increased by 13.66 percent, standing at Tk 29,247 crore.
Although the increased allocation appears to be a step in the right direction, family planning experts believe that the higher budgets are not being utilised in a planned manner.
Continued: https://www.thedailystar.net/city/news/increased-budget-must-come-policy-changes-utilisation-1925709
1 in 3 Women Struggled to Get Birth Control Because of Coronavirus
The pandemic has been even worse for women's reproductive health care than the 2008 recession. And this is just the beginning.
by Carter Sherman
June 24, 2020
One in three women struggled to get their birth control, had to delay a doctor’s visit for sexual or reproductive health care, or had to cancel a visit entirely due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to findings released Wednesday by the Guttmacher Institute.
Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks restrictions on reproductive health, surveyed more than 2,000 cisgender women across the United States in late April and early May. Even in those early weeks of the global shutdown, they discovered that the pandemic had already made getting birth control and related health care a struggle for more women than the 2008 recession had.
Covid-19 fuelling mother and child mortality rates
Jun 16, 2020
Sanchita Sharma, Hindustantimes
Priyanshi Kol was born in her parent’s one-room hutment in Ansara village in the Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh on May 21 because her mother Shivjanki, 26, couldn’t get an ambulance to reach Sanjay Gandhi Medical Hospital 100 km away.
She died on June 13 from childbirth-related complications. She was 23 days old.
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