Fertility

Pregnant women hold their medical cards and wait for their turn to be examined at a government hospital on World Population Day in Hyderabad, India, Friday, July 11, 2014. 

As India becomes the world’s most populous nation, engaging men in family planning ‘will be a game changer’

Reproductive rights

The United Nations projects that next year, India will surpass China and claim the title of the world’s most populous country. India’s population growth has actually been slowing down for many decades, thanks to comprehensive family planning — but the burden mostly falls on women.

A young Tanzanian woman speaks to a male doctor.

Tanzanian president bluntly attacks contraception, saying high birth rates are good for economy

Development
A model of a fetus

The South Korean government is reviewing its 1950s abortion ban

Health & Medicine
Semen samples at Canadian sperm bank Can-Am Cryoservices

Why Canada has to import much of its sperm from the US

Health
CycleBeads are among the apps offering to help with "user-directed birth control."

Sex without the Pill? There’s an app for that!

Health
sonia narang fabella

In this Manila ‘baby factory,’ why women put up with crowding four to a bed

Development

Delivering in one of the world’s most crowded maternity wards may be miserable, but the birth control these women can access afterward makes it worth it to them. Maybe, they say, they won’t have to come back, or at least so soon.

Doctor Katarzyna Koziol injects sperm directly into an egg during in-vitro fertilization procedure at Novum clinic in Warsaw October 26, 2010.

When sperm and egg unite — sparks (of zinc) really do fly

Science

Scientists at Northwestern University have now visualized how the eggs of mammals use the otherwise-unexplainable supply of zinc that they develop.

A sign marking the border between the United States and Canada at Niagara Falls.

Why Canadian women are travelling to Maine to get abortions

Health

New Brunswick’s only privately-funded abortion clinic closed its door in July. Now more and more women are driving across the border to Maine to terminate their pregnancies, despite the time and costs involved.

A woman walks on the shore of the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv.

Facebook can learn from Israel when it comes to freezing women’s eggs

Health

Facebook and Apple made headlines by announcing they would include egg-freezing as a benefit for female employees. But in Israel, reproductive technologies like egg-freezing and In Vitro Fertilization are encouraged and even sponsored by the state healthcare system.

HSPH Forum

Delaying pregnancy in the US and around the world

Health & Medicine

In a new report, the CDC has confirmed that the average age at which American women deliver their first babies has increased in the last 40 years. The World and The Forum at the Harvard School of Public Health team up this week to discuss the repercussions of delaying pregnancy and parenthood in the United States and around the world.In a new report, the CDC has confirmed that the average age at which American women deliver their first babies has increased in the last 40 years. The World and The Forum at the Harvard School of Public Health team up this week to discuss the repercussions of delaying pregnancy and parenthood in the United States and around the world.