Tagged / Nepal

New BU multidisciplinary media & health paper out today!

international, open access, Publishing

media childbirth

Today saw the publication “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media, a paper which is truly interdisciplinary, both in terms of its authorship as well as its topics[1]. The lead-author, Dr. Ann Luce is based in the Faculty of Media & Communication, whilst her BU co-authors Dr. Catherine Angell, Prof. Vanora Hundley, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr. Marylin Cash are all associated with the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences. Prof. Helen Cheyne, the only non-BU co-author, is based at the University of Stirling.

The paper is a scoping review to assess the influence media have on pregnant women. Much of the academic literature discusses the influence of (reality) television, which often portrays birth as risky, dramatic and painful.  Although many claim that the portrayal of childbirth has a negative effect on society, there is little research evidence to support this claim. It has been suggested that women seek out such programmes to help understand what could happen during the birth because there is a cultural void through the increasing anticipation of negative outcomes. However the impact that has on normal birth has not been explored.  Our paper highlighted three key themes: (a) the medicalisation of childbirth; (b) women using media to learn about childbirth; and (c) birth as a missing everyday life event.  The key conclusions are the media appear to influence how women engage with childbirth. The dramatic television portrayal of birth may perpetuate the medicalisation of childbirth, and last, but not least, portrayals of normal birth are often missing in the popular media. Hence midwives need to engage with television producers to improve the representation of midwifery and maternity in the media.

BMC cover media

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth is an Open Access journal so our paper is freely available to researchers, journalists, childbirth activists as well as pregnant women anywhere in the world.  This paper builds on a growing number of academic papers published by staff in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the role the media play in health and midwifery, both in the UK [2-3] and in Nepal [4-6].

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1.  Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C., (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40
  2. Hundley, V., Duff, E., Dewberry, J., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Fear in childbirth: are the media responsible? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 24(4): 444-447.
  3. Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 25(1):5-10.
  4. Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2012) Media use for Health Promotion: Communicating Childhood Immunisation Messages to Parents. Journal of Health Promotion 4(1): 1-9.
  5. Devkota, S., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Rai, L.D. (2013) Childhood Immunisation in Nepal: Parents’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour & implications for Health Policy. Health Science Journal 7(4):370-383.
  6. Devkota, S., Maharjan, H.M., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Media and Health. In: Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P. & van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha & Himal Books: 169-184.

New health editorial on Sustainable Development Goals & Nepal

international, Publishing, student research, writing

Regmi SDG 2016SDG 17Since late 2015 the world strives to achieve towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The SDGs bring together the social, economic and environmental aspects of development. There are 17 SDGs sub-divided into 169 targets. One of these 17 goals focuses specifically on health, namely to “ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all age”. SDG devotes 13 health-related targets to diverse population health and wellbeing issues including maternal and child health, communicable disease including HIV, non-communicable diseases, substance use, traffic accidents, universal access to sexual and reproductive health, and sanitation.

Nepal is one of the many countries that have signed up to the SDGs. This week BU researchers Dr. Pramod Regmi, Prof. Vanora Hundley,  Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, FHSS, PhD students Sheetal Sharma and Preeti Mahato, and BU Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam Simkhada (Liverpool John Moores University) published an editorial under the title ‘Sustainable Development Goals: relevance to maternal & child health in Nepal’ [1]. This editorial written by health researchers working in Nepal highlights some of the weaknesses in the country’s health care system.   These key problems include the persistence of inequalities in health and the limited access to health services and the low uptake of care in many poorer populations especially in the more remote rural regions. For instance, only about one in nine of the poorest women deliver their babies with the aid of a skilled birth attendant (SBA), whilst 81.5% for the richest women benefit form a SBA. Therefore, this editorial stresses the need for a continuum of health care services to be available across the country and for all sections of the society. Moreover, we can only assess whether a country has reached all or any of the SDGs if there is systematic monitoring and regular review of interventions at all levels. Hence, Nepal should develop measureable and time-bond indicators to track its progress towards the SDGs. The country will need support from development partners in both its attempts to achieve the SDGs as well when it tries to collect and analysis data to assess its progress.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingn

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, P., Sharma, S., Mahato, P. (2016) Sustainable Development Goals: relevance to maternal & child health in Nepal. Health Prospect 15(1):9-10. healthprospect.org/archives/15/1/3.pdf

 

Presentation by PhD student Preeti Mahato Jan 27th.

international, PG research, student research

On Wednesday Jan. 27th CMMPH PhD student Preeti Mahato will present her PhD research ideas under the title “Addressing quality of care and equity of services available at birthing centres to improve maternal and neonatal health in western Nepal.”  Her presentation will be held at the Lansdowne Campus at 13.00 in room 301 in Royal London House.

IMG_6459Preeti’s research focuses on birthing centres in western Nepal; and quality and equity of service available at these facilities. In Nepal, birthing centres act as first contact point for the women seeking maternity services especially the basic obstetric care. The focus of this presentation will be to talk about the first review article Preeti Mahato wrote for the ‘Journal of Asian Midwives’ entitled “Birthing centres in Nepal: Recent development, obstacles and opportunities”. The article has been accepted for publication in June 2016 and focuses on introducing birthing centres, their current state of operation under the health system of Nepal, barriers they are facing and what could be done to improve their present state. The quality of care issue available at birthing centre is emphasised, since the number of these facilities are increasing however there is a growing trend to bypass and uptake services at hospitals. Despite barriers to utilisation of services at birthing centres, they can play an important role in increasing institutional delivery rate and proportion of births benefiting from a skilled birth attendant.IMG_6591

The second part of presentation will provide a brief summary on what Preeti has done since writing a review article, as she has worked on a systematic review on quality of basic obstetric care facilities in low and middle income countries.

Preeti Mahato has worked in the field of public health in Nepal for three years after completing her Master of Public Health. She has an interest in sexual and reproductive health, women’s health and maternal and child health. Working as a public health officer she was involved in maternal and neonatal health that developed her interest in pursuing a doctorate related to maternal and neonatal health. Part of her work in Nepal also included monitoring and supervision of birthing centres in rural areas of Nepal and that is how she became motivated to start a PhD at BU.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Mental health & maternity care in Nepal: THET-funded training

international, open access

group work NawalparasiIMG_6649

A few days I posted a short report of our first session as part of the THET-funded project ‘Mental Health Training for Community-based Maternity Providers in Nepal’, see this previous post here.  Yesterday we completed the final third day training of the first session of this BU-led project.  Over three days we had 70 ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) in attendance, which we think is (nearly) all such staff based in all birthing centres in the district (=province).  The three days were the same, i.e. each session was repeated twice so each day one third of the ANMs could attend, and two-third could be at work in the birthing centre ensuring women could deliver safely.

logo THETAs part of this project we send UK volunteers (health and/or education) experts to Nepal to offer high quality training in areas where it is most needed.  Further detail on this BU-led THET project can be found in our scientific paper Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal  published in the Nepal Journal of Epidemiology available through Open Access.  Mental illness is still very much a taboo topic in Nepal as it has often a serious stigma attached to it.  Moreover, the relatively short training of ANMs is often fairly basic and the national curriculum does not cover mental health issues in any detail.  This joint project between Bournemouth University, Liverpool John Mooores University, Tribhuvan University and the local charity Green Tata Nepal addresses issues about mental health in general and in pregnant women and new mothers in particular.  Tribhuvan University is the oldest university in Nepal and one of the ten largest universities in the world (based on student numbers).  The project is multi-disciplinary involving midwives, (mental health) nurses, and doctors as well as global health researchers, educationalists and sociologists.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

 

Successful ESRC Festival of Social Sciences in EBC today

Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, PG research, student research, Women's Academic Network

Slide1Slide2This afternoon Prof. Jonathan Parker introduced the final of three session in the Executive Business Centre under the title ‘Enhancing social life through global social research: Part 3. Social science research in diverse communities’.  This session was well attended and coveredwas a wide-range of interesting social science research topics.

Professor of Sociology Ann Brooks started off the session with her presentation on ‘Emotional labour and social change.’   She was followed by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen who gave an overview of research in Nepal.  FHSS PhD student Andy Harding introduced his thesis research into ‘Information provision and housing choices for older people.’  At this point Prof. Brooks gave her second talk on ‘Risk and the crisis of authenticity in cities’. Social Anthropologist Dr. Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers spoke about her research on ‘Reconciliation and engaged ethnography in the Balkans.’  Dr. Hyun-Joo Lim highlighted her study on ‘North Korean defectors in the UK’ and the session was completed by Dr. Mastoureh Fathi who presented her analysis of parenting books for Muslim parents in the UK.

ESRC banner (2)

This was the last day of the ESRC Festival of Social Science at which Bournemouth University was extremely well presented!

 

Thank you to my colleagues for organising this and the ESRC for funding the events!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

(medical sociologist)

Congratulations new publication Dr. Pramod Regmi in FHSS

Publishing

Asia Pac J PH 2015Asian-Pacific Journal of Public Health published an editorial with Dr. Pramod Regmi as its first author.  The editorial ‘Importance of Health and Social Care Research into Gender and Sexual Minority Populations in Nepal.’  The authors argue that despite progressive legislative developments and increased visibility of sexual and gender minority populations in the general population, mass media often report that this population face a wide range of discrimination and inequalities. LGBT (lesbian, gay, and bisexual, and transgender) populations have not been considered as priority research populations in Nepal.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

Regmi, R.R., van Teijlingen, E.  Importance of Health and Social Care Research into Gender and Sexual Minority Populations in Nepal

Asia Pac J Public Health 2015 27: 806–808,