Engender blog
GUEST BLOG: My “unremarkable” pandemic pregnancy
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work, we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences. Here, Sarah Robinson Galloway looks back on pregnancy in the early stages of the pandemic.
It’s Boxing Day 2019, I’m in my sister-in-law’s bathroom early in the morning doing a pregnancy test. I already knew I was pregnant, despite it only being two or three weeks, this was just to confirm so I wasn’t second-guessing myself. It’s positive, I tell my husband and we’re excited to be on our second pregnancy journey. We weren’t worried, we had done this before and had one beautiful wee girl already.
GUEST BLOG: Lockdown (maternity) leave
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work, we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences. Here, Eilidh shares her experience of post-partum support during the pandemic.
My eldest was born in early March 2020, meaning my pregnancy and birth happened back in the old normal, where facemasks were rare and social distancing wasn’t a phrase yet. We left hospital to the same kind of new normal that every new parent enters, where days merge together in a haze of sleepless nights, breastfeeding and nappies. We had visits from family and tried to find our feet, mostly unaware of the world changing outside.
GUEST BLOG: Maternity and pregnancy services during Covid-19
We've been working with the ALLIANCE and The Health and Social Care Academy to gather information about experiences of pregnancy and maternity services during Covid-19 from women across Scotland. Alongside our work, we're sharing a series of guest blogs reflecting on those experiences. Here, Hannah Tweed reflects on her experience of pregnancy services in 2020.
This month the ALLIANCE and Engender launched a survey on people’s experiences of pregnancy (and everything after) during the Covid-19 pandemic.
To be frank, reading through early drafts of the survey was distinctly uncanny. I was pregnant with my daughter when the pandemic started, and she was a #LockdownBaby of 2020 – which, as a larval human with binary needs, probably did her no real harm. I’m not sure I’d say the same of my experiences as a new parent (and particularly one who spent my second and third trimesters immersed in public health policy).
Tell us your experiences of pregnancy and maternity during Covid-19
We know that the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent public health measures, had a disproportionate impact on women. Just one of the ways this is true was the impacts on women accessing fertility treatment, those who were pregnant or trying to conceive, and on people giving birth.
Engender and the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) want to hear about your experiences of pregnancy or trying to become pregnant during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this survey is to gather information about experiences of maternity and pregnancy services in Scotland during COVID-19. This survey will be used to support our work on the COVID-19 independent inquiry and our work to improve women’s health and wellbeing.
Gender inequality in sickness and in health
Engender recently produced a briefing for the Scottish Parliament's Health, Social Care and Sport Committee about women's health inequalities. You can access the full briefing here, where we talk about the need for good quality data (of course!), the way that other structural forms of oppression impact on women's health and wellbeing, and provide recommendations to close the health gap. This blog focuses on the role that gender plays in women's health inequalities.
Systemic gender inequality has an enormous impact on health. Although women’s life expectancy exceeds that of men, women spend longer living with disability and ill health, and more women than men in Scotland live with a long-term health condition. Health issues that disproportionately affect women, or affect women differently to men, have historically lacked funding and professional focus, meaning that women’s health needs are not equally prioritised and understood across health services and more broadly.
RSSDownloads
Engender Briefing: Pension Credit Entitlement Changes
From 15 May 2019, new changes will be introduced which will require couples where one partner has reached state pension age and one has not (‘mixed age couples’) to claim universal credit (UC) instead of Pension Credit.
Engender Parliamentary Briefing: Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism
Engender welcomes this Scottish Parliament Debate on Condemnation of Misogyny, Racism, Harassment and Sexism and the opportunity to raise awareness of the ways in which women in Scotland’s inequality contributes to gender-based violence.
Gender Matters in Social Security: Individual Payments of Universal Credit
A paper calling on the Scottish Government to automatically split payments of Universal Credit between couples, once this power is devolved to the Scottish Parliament.
Gender Matters Manifesto: Twenty for 2016
This manifesto sets out measures that, with political will, can be taken over the next parliamentary term in pursuit of these goals.
Scottish NGO Briefing for UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Joint briefing paper for the UN Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
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