Health care for women international
-
Health Care Women Int · Jan 2012
Randomized Controlled TrialThe effects of resistance training on cardiovascular disease risk factors in postmenopausal women: a randomized-controlled trial.
Our aim was to determine the effects of resistance training on cardiovascular risk factors in postmenopausal women. Forty-five women were included in the study. ⋯ There were significant time and group interactions for body mass index (p = .02), heart rate (p = .04), systolic blood pressure (p = .03), estimated mean peak VO(2) (p = .00), and total cholesterol (p = .00), but there were no interactions with other evaluated parameters. Resistance training has beneficial effects on particular cardiovascular risk factors in postmenopausal women.
-
Health Care Women Int · Jan 2012
Randomized Controlled TrialThe use of perineal massage in the second stage of labor and follow-up of postpartum perineal outcomes.
Because perineal trauma causes both short- and long-term problems after labor, the high rate of episiotomies and spontaneous lacerations is an important women's health problem in Turkey. Our aim in this study was to investigate whether perineal massage during labor decreased perineal trauma and trauma-related problems. The study included 396 pregnant women who were giving birth for the first time, between March 2007 and February 2009, in Turkey. It can be concluded that perineal massage decreases the amount of suture material required for episiotomy and thereby the size of the episiotomy and the rate of episiotomies and lacerations.
-
Health Care Women Int · Jan 2012
Safe motherhood practices among women of urban slums in bangladesh.
In this article we examine the prevalence and factors associated with the utilization of safe motherhood practices among slum-dwelling women of Bangladesh using the 2006 Bangladesh Urban Health Survey data. Overall, the utilization of maternal health care services was very low. The binary logistic regression analyses yielded significantly increased skilled services utilization for women with higher education levels, nonworking women, non-Muslims, women undergoing their first pregnancy, women who had lived in the slum longer, and amongst the rich. Awareness should be created through information, education, and communication programs, and services should be provided with minimum cost to promote safe motherhood practices among the urban poor in Bangladesh.
-
Health Care Women Int · Oct 2011
Reducing maternal mortality: a review of progress and evidence-based strategies to achieve millennium development goal 5.
Maternal mortality represents a major global health challenge. Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5) set a range of targets pertaining to maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health care. While the realization of these targets seems unlikely, cost-effective population-level approaches in combination with evidence-based interventions targeting the acute management of the major causes of maternal mortality present the potential for considerable progress as the 2015 deadline approaches.
-
Health Care Women Int · Sep 2011
Normalizing policies of inaction--the case of health care in Australia for women affected by domestic violence.
Domestic violence impacts on all aspects of affected women's lives and results in poor general, reproductive, and psychological health (World Health Organisation, 2010). Despite mounting evidence that current health care responses to women affected by domestic violence are problematic, policies have nevertheless been rolled out without addressing issues identified. Funding cuts, fragmentation of services, and failure to establish good practice has resulted in a discourse where women's needs are pushed to the outside and they are marginalized, lost in the language and discourse of policy, normalizing a discourse of incompletion at policy and bureaucracy levels.