- Khaled, K., Hundley, V., Bassil, M., Bazzi, M., Tsofliou, F. (2024) The Association between Psychological Stress and Dietary Quality and Patterns among Women of Childbearing Age in Lebanon. Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 8(9): 8-20.
Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
Congratulations to Karim Khaled on the publication in the international journal Nutrients of his latest women’s health paper [1]. The paper ‘A Structural Equation Modelling Approach to Examine the Mediating Effect of Stress on Diet in Culturally Diverse Women of Childbearing Age’ is co-authored with his PhD supervisors Dr. Fotini Tsofliou and Prof. Vanora Hundley.
This paper in Nutrients is Open Access, hence available to read to anybody across the globe with internet access.
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
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Our recent paper in BMJ Global Health was highlighted in an earlier BU Research Blog (to read this click here!). This latest paper is the third one based on Dr. Sarita Panday’s PhD research conducted at the University of Sheffield [2-3]. It is the fourth Bournemouth University paper on FCHVs with last weeks publication in the Journal of Manmohan memorial Institute of Health Sciences [4]
Professor Edwin van Teijlingen
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This week the Global Health Journal accepted the latest article on female migrant workers from Nepal [1]. The paper is co-authored by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health as well as by Faculty of Health & Social Sciences Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam, and other Nepalese co-authors are based in the UK and Nepal. Ms. Manju Gurung is co-founder & strategic advisor of POURAKHI Nepal, an Nepal-based organisation supporting ,migrant workers. Dr. Sharada P.Wasti, is based at the University of Greenwich, and he has collaborated with Bournemouth University academics on several previous academic papers on health, work-related migration and human trafficking [2-4].
The paper highlights the plight of women working abroad and the problems they encounter destination countries. This study reported in this paper was conducted among 1,889 women who were registered as migrant returnees at an organisation called POURAKHI Nepal. The study extracted and analysed data from this non-governmental organisation that
supports returning female migrant workers in Nepal.
Around half (43.1 %) of the women in the study were 35 or older, 30.9 % were illiterate, and 63.6 % were in their first overseas job. Over one-third (38.5 %) had experienced self-reported workplace harassment. Gender-based violence was a serious problem as physical violence was highly prevalent (68 %), followed by verbal abuse (37.5 %), mental stress (29.7 %), and sexual abuse (14.1 %).
Women who worked abroad with the following characteristics were at the greatest risk: those who were illiterate (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]1.25, 95 % confidence interval [CI]: 1.01 to 1.55), unmarried (AOR 1.27, 95 % CI: 1.05 to 1.56), worked abroad twice or more years (AOR 1.35, 95 % CI: 1.10 to 1.66), changed their place of work (AOR 2.38, 95 % CI: 1.42 to 4.01), lived without documents (AOR 1.24, 95 % CI: 1.03 to 1.50), worked as domestics (AOR 3.56, 95 % CI: 2.03 to 6.23), worked in other than Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (AOR 1.45, 95 % CI: 1.06 to 1.99), women who did not have a fixed salary (AOR 1.64, 95 % CI: 1.28 to 2.10) and did not receive salary (AOR 3.71, 95 % CI: 2.88 to 4.77) were more likely to be harassed at work.
The authors recommend that the host governments should introduce and enforce policies protecting women in the workplace. Moreover, migrant women should be provided with better information about health risks and hazards as well as how to improve preventive measures in destination countries to reduce workplace harassment.
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
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Access to safe and sufficient drinking Water, Sanitation, and good Hygiene (WASH) facilities in schools play a crucial role in preventing numerous diseases, improving the learning environment in schools, and creating resilient communities living in a healthy environment. This study in Nepal explored the impact of combining WASH facilities on students’ health status, school attendance, and educational achievements [1].
A total of 24 participants, 16 students, and eight teachers were interviewed; data were audio recorded and analyzed thematically. Some of the results suggest that school-WASH facilities have a significant impact on students’ health and well‐being. Poor school‐WASH facilities hindered students’ school attendance, particularly for menstruating girls. School without separate toilets for girls, including menstruation hygiene facilities, lack of water and soap, sanitary pad, and secure toilet’s door often have higher rates of absenteeism among girls. It is important to note that inadequate WASH facilities affect not only students, but also teachers in the same school. The latest paper conclude that a lack of safe and sufficient drinking water, unimproved sanitation, and poor hygiene facilities were seen by students and teachers as reducing their health and well‐being, school attendance, and academic performance. Schools needs to provide better WASH facilities for the benefit of students’ health, attendance, and educational proficiency.
This is a follow-up from an earlier paper on the effect on educational achievement in the same population [2].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
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Today we saw the publication of our latest paper about FCHVs (Female Community Health Volunteers) in Nepal [1]. This paper is Open Access and hence freely available worldwide, to anyone with an internet access. The FCHV programme is one of the most successful parts of the health system of Nepal. This programme covers over fifty thousand FCHVs distributed across the country. These women provide unparalleled services to help across communities to improve outcomes in communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and aid health promotion and education.
Previous papers focusing on FCHVs included the recently accepted paper in PLOS Global Public Health [2], as well as two previous papers based on the Ph.D. study by Dr. Sarita Panday on FCHVs [3-4]. The latest paper is co-authored with Sankalpa Bhattarai is is working with our long-term collaborating agency Green Tara Nepal.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
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The journal PLOS Global Public Health informed us that our paper ‘Exploring the motivations of female community health volunteers in primary healthcare provision in rural Nepal: a qualitative study’ [1] has been formally accepted in the Open Access journal. Dr. Sarita Panday is based at the Univeristy of Essex and Dr. Amy Barnes is based at the University of York. This paper is part of the first author’s Ph.D. project at the University of Sheffield, and it is the third second paper from her Ph.D. thesis as previous academic articles have appeared in BMC Health Services Research [2] and PLoS ONE [3].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
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Publisher Routledge announced the forthcoming edited volume Menstruation in Nepal: Dignity Without Danger, which is edited by Sara Parker, Madhusudan Subedi and Kay Standing. This book examines the complexities of menstrual beliefs and practices in Nepal. Taking an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach, it explores and promotes the rights of women, girls and people who menstruate, to a dignified and healthy menstruation. I had the honour of being asked to write some of the blurb for this exciting book. Partly, because of our wide-range of health services and health promotion research in the country and partly because of our previous paper on reusable sanitary towels in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal [1].
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
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This week the Journal of Asian Midwives published our short article ‘Out-of-hospital births: A small but growing phenomenon in high income countries: A viewpoint‘ [1]. OOHBs (out-of-hospital births), is also referred to as freebirth (or freebirthing), unassisted childbirth and/or unassisted pregnancy [2]. OOHB does not refer to giving birth at home before the midwife arrives at a home birth or the birth taking place in an ambulance or along the side of the road on the way to a maternity unit, this is called ‘born before arrival’. OOHB suggests an element of planning of planning a birth without a midwife (or other maternity-care professional).
The paper in the Journal of Asian Midwives highlights that during the COVID-19 pandemic, OOHBs were a way to avoid Public Health regulations and lock-down constraints, and to guarantee the presence of a partner at the birth. The authors argue, however, that the pandemic is not at the origin of the trend, but more of a catalyst. Advocacy groups, maternity-service users’ groups, the media, and midwifery organisations in several high-income countries have in recent years underlined the growing criticism of existing maternity care and midwifery services and a long-term shortage of midwives. This is in addition to a longstanding trend in the United Kingdom of closing community-based hospitals, including small, free-standing midwife-led units.
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
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Congratulations to Dr. Hyun-Joo Lim on the publication of her latest book North Korean Women and Defection: Human Rights Violations and Activism which was published last week by Bristol University Press. The book covers the recent North Korean diaspora which has created female refugee groups fighting for the protection of women’s rights. Presenting in-depth accounts of North Korean women defectors living in the UK, this book examines how their harrowing experiences have become an impetus for their activism. Dr Hyun-Joo Lim, who is Principal Academic in Sociology in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, reveals how North Korean women defectors’ have an Utopian dream of a better future for fellow North Korean women. This dream is vital in their activism. Unique in its focus on the intersections between gender, politics, activism and mobility, the book will inform debates on activism and human rights internationally.
Well done!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Dr Rachel Moseley writes for The Conversation about the gender differences in autism and the impact of late, or no, diagnosis for autistic people…
Rachel Moseley, Bournemouth University
For many women, adult diagnoses of autism are “a light in the darkness”, an epiphany of self-understanding. My “lightbulb moment” came in my late 20s. “They thought you were autistic,” my mum mused when I told her I was embarking on an academic career in autism research.
As a child, I was painfully aware of being different. The adults and the children around me had noticed my strangeness, my inability to fit in. It turned out that autism had been suggested to my mother – but then dismissed by a child psychiatrist. I didn’t fit what was known about autism. Although socially gauche, I’d mastered eye contact and was fairly eloquent.
A few years after my mum had made that off-the-cuff comment, I was re-evaluating my life in the context of a shiny new diagnosis.
Researchers are learning more and more about the way autism differs in people of different sexes and genders. As they do so, the lights are coming on for more of us who’ve felt lost in the world.
There is no one type of autistic person. The key features of autism – differences in the way we think, communicate and interact with others – show up in more diverse and subtle ways than the limited examples suggested by the diagnostic criteria. This is often true in autistic girls.
This article is part of Women’s Health Matters, a series about the health and wellbeing of women and girls around the world. From menopause to miscarriage, pleasure to pain the articles in this series will delve into the full spectrum of women’s health issues to provide valuable information, insights and resources for women of all ages.
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Birth trauma is a growing problem — experiencing it myself revealed how few people understand it
While they struggle with social understanding, many autistic girls are adept mimics of the social behaviour of other people. In the way they speak and the things they talk about, they are more similar to neurotypical children than autistic boys are. This may explain why, on first impression, people tend to underestimate autistic girls’ difficulties.
In comparison to autistic boys, the conversation of autistic girls tends to be more social in nature, focusing more on the people and friendship groups around them. Their interests tend to be more social, involving fictional characters, animals or celebrities rather than non-living objects. Tellingly, they express greater longing for the friendships and relationships which often elude them.
As they grow, some girls learn scripts to use in social situations, and develop a passive way of behaving with others that focuses on making the other person feel comfortable. Many autistic girls and women engage in this kind of “social camouflaging” constantly in order to seem acceptable to others.
The subtleties of autism in girls mean that they’re diagnosed significantly later than boys. In part, this reflects lack of awareness in the professionals who typically signpost children to autism services. However, others will be passed over because diagnostic assessment tools are less sensitive to autism in girls with cognitive abilities in the normal range.
Undiagnosed autistic people are often painfully aware of their inability to fit in and to do the things that others do easily. If no one gives you an explanation, you’re left to find one yourself.
I knew as a teenager that I must be fundamentally bad, since I was bullied and had no friends at school. Autistic people I’ve worked with in my research have similarly blamed themselves for a lifetime of struggling and being abused, pinning these things on personal failings.
Across research studies, we late-diagnosed autistics are that societal subgroup with a history of academic struggles, employment problems, mental illness and relationship breakdowns. Our self-narratives are ones of inadequacy and failure.
Research has found that autistic girls and women have poorer mental health than autistic men. So are people who are diagnosed later in life compared to those diagnosed when young. These two facts are almost certainly interrelated. Autistic children who grow up without a diagnosis are unlikely to receive appropriate support. What’s more, they’re less likely to be viewed with compassion when they struggle.
Recognition of autism in girls and women may come at a crisis point. For some, this occurs in the pubertal chaos and complex social world of adolescence, where rates of anxiety and depression climb steeply in autistic girls. For some, it happens in the world-rocking turmoil of menopause, which appears to derail the coping skills and social camouflage that undiagnosed people rely on.
For some, it never happens. Undiagnosed autistic people are believed to constitute a high number of suicide deaths.
Beyond diagnosis, there are other ways that autistic girls and women face greater challenges than boys and men. While women generally suffer higher rates of sexual abuse, this risk is even higher for autistic women.
Autistic women often find their difficulties are poorly understood by employers, and must also contend with gendered pressures to perform emotional labour at work – taking on the unpaid and implicit responsibility to look after the emotions of others – or face damage to their reputation.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, autistic gender disparities in stress-related illnesses and risk of suicide are stark. Despite this, autistic women still face greater barriers to accessing help.
It’s uncertain to what extent these disparities can be traced back to the fundamental fact that autism is poorly understood and under-catered for in women and people of minority sexes and genders.
What we do know is that early diagnosis seems crucial for girls to grow up with positive self-image and lower risk of mental illness.
For we lucky women who got there in the end, a discovered autistic identity can be a life-changing gift. Finding ourselves means finding each other, release from self-blame and a new sense of belonging.
Rachel Moseley, Principle Academic in Psychology, Bournemouth University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Congratulations the Abier Hamidi, PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) whose PhD work was published in The Conversation this week (24 April) under the title Social media now trumps traditional family networks in Libya – my Facebook survey reached 446,000 women. Her piece in The Conversation on the recruitment of female participants for a PhD study in a rather patriarchal society brings together issues of anonymity, gender, and wider social culture.
This is Abier’s PhD research is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Senior Lecturer in International Health and the Global Engagement Lead in the Department of Nursing Sciences, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Congratulations to Abier Hamidi on the acceptance of her Ph.D. paper ‘Facilitators and barriers to condom use in Middle East and North Africa: a systematic review’. [1] This review has been registered on PROSPERO. [2] The Journal of Public Health is part of BU’s publishing deal with Springer, hence it will free open access when published.
Abier is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Senior Lecturer in International Health and the Global Engagement Lead in the Department of Nursing Sciences, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH). Earlier Abier published ‘HIV epidemic in Libya: Identifying gaps’ in 2021. [3]
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Abier is conducting a PhD on: ‘Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Health Education Strategies in Reducing Harm from HIV in Libyan Married Women’. Recently, she had her first PhD paper “HIV epidemic in Libya: Identifying gaps” accepted for publication by the Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (JIAPAC) published by SAGE [1]. Abier’s PhD project is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi (Senior Lecturer in International Health) and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).
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Dr Melanie Stockton-Brown and Amy Tatum, Doctoral Researcher, in the FMC have created a short-film and zine to share their research on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, copyright, voice, and attribution for women authors. As Mary Shelley is buried in Bournemouth and the Shelley family lived here and have many links to the area, it is wonderful to be able to celebrate the extensive feminist, copyright, and cultural legacy of such an influential author and person.
Beloved is a short-film retelling Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and celebrating her feminist, literary and copyright legacy. This is a queer feminist retelling using puppets, and emphasises how important it is to be acknowledged as the creator and copyright owner of your creative works. Look out for the beautiful seaside shots of Bournemouth beach and cliffs!
FrankenZine: Voice, Copyright, and Women Authors is a zine is about women authors, and the importance of the proper legal and cultural recognition of their voices, and their right to be acknowledged as the author of their creative works. These are four women authors who have fought to keep their copyright, to be attributed as the author, and who have experienced gender and racial discrimination in having their voices heard equally. Our voices and stories are very important, and so is having our name spoken and remembered with those stories.
The short-film and zine were kindly funded by CIPPM, and the Department of Humanities and Law QR funding.
Today our chapter: Birth Systems across the World: Variations in maternity policy and services across countries was published in the renowned series of books: FIGO Continuous Textbook of Women’s Medicine [1]. This chapter was co-authored by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) with Prof. Sirpa Wrede and Doctoral Researcher from the University of Helsinki (Finland) and Dr. from the European University at St. Petersburg (Russia). The chapter includes a set of recommendations for future practice.
Volume 1 is edited by Prof. Jane Sandall from King’s College London. Earlier this year Prof. Sandall was appointed as the first-ever head of midwifery research for England and one of her key focuses will be around ending racial health inequalities in maternity care.
Everything published on The Global Library of Women’s Medicine is available to everyone everywhere for free and there is no requirement to register in order to view it.
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Congratulations to FHSS authors on the publication of their paper “A Priori and a Posteriori Dietary Patterns in Women of Childbearing Age in the UK” which has been published in the scientific journal Nutrients [1]. The authors highlight that a poor diet quality is a major cause of maternal obesity. They investigated investigate a priori and a-posteriori derived dietary patterns in childbearing-aged women in the United Kingdom. An online survey assessed food intake, physical activity (PA), anthropometry and socio-demographics. A poor diet quality was found among childbearing-aged women; notably in the younger age category, those of white ethnicity, that were more physically inactive and with a lower socioeconomic background.
The article is Open Access and freely available (click here!).
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Congratulations to Dr. Alison Taylor in the Centre for Midwifery,Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) whose third PhD paper has just been accepted by the International Breastfeeding Journal. Alison’s paper ‘Commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding: video diaries by first-time mothers’ reminds us that many of aspects of our lives are increasingly commercialised in post-modern society. Although breastfeeding is perhaps a late comer to this process in recent years, it too has seen significant commercialisation facilitated by social media and our obsession with celebrity culture.
This paper explores how the commercialisation and commodification of breastfeeding impacts mothers’ experiences of breastfeeding. The paper highlights that women preparing for breastfeeding are exposed to increasing commercialisation. When things do not go to plan, women are even more exposed to commercial solutions. The impact of online marketing strategies fuelled their need for paraphernalia so that their dependence on such items became important aspects of their parenting and breastfeeding experiences. Dr. Taylor and her co-authors offer new insights into how advertising influenced mothers’ need for specialist equipment and services. Observing mothers in their video diaries, provided valuable insights into their parenting styles and how this affected their breastfeeding experience.
The International Breastfeeding Journal is an Open Access journal owned by Springer.
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