Reproductive Health meetings & conferences

World Health Summit

The World Health Summit is one of the world’s foremost gatherings of leaders from academia, politics, industry and civil society to develop joint strategies and take action to address key challenges in medical research, global health and health care delivery with the aim of shaping the political, academic and social agendas. This year´s World Health Summit “Research for Health and Sustainable Development” will be held in Berlin from October 21st to 24th, 2012.

The M8 Alliance of Academic Health Centres and Medical Universities was officially founded in 2009, as a medical and scientific forum of excellence on the occasion of the 1st World Health Summit in Berlin. It is composed of a network of prestigious medical institutions dealing with scientific, political, and economic issues related to medicine and global health. The M8 Alliance acts as a permanent platform for framing future considerations of global medical development and health challenges. It is the M8’s vision to harness academic excellence to improve global health.

Summit’s main themes:

“Research for Health and Sustainable Development”

Educating Health Professionals
• Brain Drain in Medical Professions
• Educating Health Professionals for the 21st Century

Translating Research into Policy
• Integrating Research into Health Policies and Health Systems
• Minimizing Waste of Research
• Translating Genomic Research into Global Health Gains

Financing Health
• Economic Crisis and Health Impact
• Sustainable Health Systems Financing and Universal Coverage

Diseases of Modern Environments
• The Epidemic of Chronic Diseases
• The Future of Maternal and Reproductive Health
• Urban Development and Mental Health

Summit Organizer

K.I.T. Group GmbH
Association & Conference Management
Kurfürstendamm 71
10709 Berlin
Germany

Sophie Spangenberger
Organizing Manager
Tel.: +49 30 246 03 240
Fax: +49 30 246 03 200
sophie.spangenberger@worldhealthsummit.org

15th National Mother Baby Nurses Conference

Sponsored by the Academy of Neonatal Nursing and Mother Baby Education

September 5–8, 2012 Chicago, Illinois

The purpose of this conference is to provide current and clinically applicable information for prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum care of the mother as well as infant care, both in the hospital and through transition to home. The educational sessions provide information to nurses and other health care professionals who care for the expectant and postpartum mother and her newborn. Specific objectives for each presentation will be listed in the conference program.

5th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights

September 19-22, 2012 Windhoek, Namibia

The 5th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights is being hosted by the Namibia Planned Parenthood Association (NAPPA), an affiliate member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) under the auspices of the African Federation for Sexual Health and Rights. The conference theme is “Sexual Health and Rights in Africa: Where are We?”

This conference will interrogate the status of sexual health and rights in Africa and in particular focus on women, girls, adolescents and youth. Efforts will be made to ensure that many constituent groups and stakeholders engage in learning exchange around policy and programme management including financing for sexual health.

Objectives
- To take stock of responses to sexual health and rights on the continent since ICPD
- To explore sexual health and rights of women, girls, adolescents and youth in Africa

The conference presentations, papers and posters will explore the conference theme and the sub-themes “Sexual and Reproductive Rights-Legal, Policy and Programme Issues (including financing sexual and reproductive health)” and “Sexual and Reproductive Rights of Adolescents and Youth” through the following thematic areas:

- Adolescent and Youth Sexuality

- Women’s and Girls Sexuality

- Disabilities and Sexual Rights

- Sexual Rights and Sex Work

- HIV/AIDS and Sexuality

- Sexuality, Culture and Religion

- Sexual and Reproductive Rights (Legal, Policy and Programme Issues- financing, equity, access, implementation, enforcement and redress)

- Sexual Orientation, Sexual/Gender Identity and Sexual and Reproductive Rights

- Capacity building and Knowledge Management

Desired Outcomes
- Alliance building, capacity enhancement and learning exchange for improved Policy, Legal and Programme management on sexual and reproductive rights.
- To disseminate relevant international declarations, charters and guidelines to civil society organizations to enhance their role in promoting sexual and reproductive rights.
- To plan and conduct a communications strategy, around the conference in order to produce dialogue on issues of sexuality, sexual health and sexual rights.
- To produce a conference technical report/publication that can be publicized for use by various institutions working in the field of sexual and reproductive rights.

Expected Participants
The conference is expected to be attended by policy makers, civil society organisations, academia, educationists, media, development activists, sexual health and rights advocates, women, girls, adolescents and youth. The conference offers a unique opportunity to further seek ways of mobilizing actions for improved understanding of sexuality and promotion of sexual health and well-being of all peoples on the African continent.

Conference Host
Namibia Planned Parenthood Association
P.O. Box 10936
Windhoek, Namibia
Tel: +264 61 230250
Fax: +264 61 230251
Email: conference@africasexuality.org
www.nappa.com.na

Relational Selves and Families in Medicine: Gender Perspectives

Conference Dec 10-12, 2012, Linköping, Sweden

In many cases, there is only one patient in the patient-health care professional encounter. This, however, is not always the case. As some examples, two individuals may seek medical assistance in order to conceive a child together and more individuals may be involved if a sibling donates egg or sperm to a family-member and her/his partner.

Many other examples can be given of encounters and treatments that involve more than one patient and one health care professional. When the patient is a minor child, parent(s) may face difficult treatment decisions as regards medical treatment for their children. If two parents are involved in the decision, they may not always agree on what is the best treatment for their child. And what say does the child have in terms of treatments? As yet another example, cases of sibling organ donation where a sibling donates an organ to a brother or sister highlight how intimately family members can become involved in each other’s medical treatment. Finally, the topic of families in medicine can be pertinent in relation to aging and health care needs in later life, where relatives can become thoroughly involved in this care and where gender roles can feed into this care work.

Still, comparably little attention has been given to the role of families in medical encounters, treatment decisions, care work and illness experiences.

The aim of the conference

Relational selves and families in medicine: Gender Perspectives is to bring together scholars who examine the role of extended families, parents, siblings, children, and close friends in medicine, and this with a gender perspective. We welcome contributions from scholars with interdisciplinary and various disciplinary backgrounds within the social sciences and the humanities. We specially invite contributions that focus on (but are not limited to):

Assisted reproductive technologies, surrogacy, egg-, sperm- and embryo donation, adoption and other ways of becoming parents

The welfare of the child in medicine

Conceptions and norms of parenthood in medicine

Corrective measures: what is ‘corrected’ and why, in children’s and teen-agers’ bodies?

Ageing and care in later life

- Relational conceptions of selves and relational autonomy

- The interplay between self and others, and how this can inform the illness experience as well as experiences of hope, strength and health.

Registration

Deadline for registration is October 15, 2012. Conference fee (100 Euro) covers one conference abstract booklet, coffee in pauses and one conference dinner. Register by sending an e-mail to conference.genderandhealth@gmail.com in which you state name, affiliation, allergies/food preferences. The conference fee is to be submitted using one of the alternatives below.

Participants with a Swedish bank account: Please use the account Bankgiro 743-8609 (Danske Bank). The reference nr: 8831030001, your name and affiliation must be included in the payment.

Participants with an international bank account: Please use the account: 8901-1 924 339 671-1. Address: Swedbank, S-105 34 Stockholm, Sweden, BIC: SWEDSESS, IBAN: SE34 8000 0890 1192 4339 6711. Please note that the reference nr: 8831030001, your name and affiliation must be included in the payment.

Any questions and enquiries can be sent to conference: genderandhealth@gmail.com

Retelling Familiar Tales of Pregnancy and Birth in European Cultures

Tues 3rd-Weds 4th July 2012, Oxford, United Kingdom

Purpose of conference

This conference aims to bring together leading specialists from a range of the medical humanities with healthcare professionals to explore the trope of the retelling of stories about pregnancy and birth. While recent work has considered the way in which stories of exceptional pregnancies and unusual births have been told again and again over western history, from Greek mythology and the Old Testament until the present day, the methodological and intellectual questions raised by these retellings have not been discussed in detail. Taking a very broad geographic and chronological focus (Europe from antiquity to the present day), our objective is to encourage innovative interdisciplinary exchanges by addressing the following questions.

How did the growth of print culture in Europe encourage the retelling of familiar birthing tales, and how were new ones added?
Why did some stories of pregnancy and birth circulate more widely than others?
When stories are retold, which details of the original are always retained, which are lost in the retelling, and how and why do new accretions creep into the story?

Sessions

The gathering particularly looks to provide the opportunity for discussion and exchange on both substance and methodology between, on the one hand, a wide range of academic disciplines contributing to the medical humanities (e.g. cultural history, art history, history of the book, literary scholars) and, on the other hand, health care practitioners who have been increasingly focused on the oral transmission of case histories (midwives, obstetricians and gynaecologists, psychiatrists). The four sessions proposed are thus wide-ranging and deliberately aim to juxtapose contributions from academics and practitioners in the various sessions.

1) The trope of repetition, or why some tales of pregnancy and birth are retold

2) Exploring accretion and loss: how tales are retold across time (antiquity to the present) and across different geographic and cultural European contexts

3) Who sees or experiences, who tells and who reads repeated tales: patients, practitioners, witnesses and readers:

4) The significance of the material circulation of repeated tales in word and image

Keynote plenary session: Professor Monica Green (Arizona State University)

Practical details

The conference sessions, including lunches and dinners, will be held in Lady Margaret Hall, a college of the University of Oxford, located in attractive grounds in the north of the city. We are looking to provide bed and breakfast accommodation in another Oxford college for the nights of 2-3-4 July 2012 for delegates who wish to take advantage of this. Alternatively, Oxford has a range of good guesthouses and hotels for those wishing to organise their own accommodation. We hope to have some bursary support available for students.

7th International DIP Symposium on Diabetes, Hypertension, Metabolic Syndrome, and Pregnancy

March 14-16, 2013 Florence, Italy

DIP 2013, the 7th International DIP Symposium on Diabetes, Hypertension, Metabolic Syndrome, and Pregnancy, will bring together clinicians, researchers, nurses, and healthcare workers involved in the treatment of diabetes and pregnancy, as well as other conditions that characterise a high-risk pregnancy.

Attendees will receive the most up-to-date scientific information, new perspectives, and a top scientific programme featuring world renowned experts. Florence, the beautiful city of art and science, is the perfect setting for knowledge sharing and networking at this highly specialised international event.

Kenes International
1-3 Rue de Chantepoulet
PO Box 1726
CH-1211 Geneva 1, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 908 0488
Fax: +41 22 906 9140
Email: dip@kenes.com

Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) 2012 Conference

September 27-30, 2012 Asilomar, California

Children and HIV: Closing the Gap - Ending Vertical Transmission Through Community Action Symposium

The Children and HIV: Closing the Gap - Ending Vertical Transmission through Community Action international symposium will be held at the Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Centre in Washington, D.C. on July 20th and 21st, 2012. This two-day symposium, jointly hosted by The Teresa Group, the Coalition on Children Affected by AIDS (CCABA), and the Global Fund for Children, will once again bring together hundreds of service providers, researchers, donors, advocates, and policy leaders from around the world, presenting on the topic of ending vertical transmission through community-based efforts.

By holding this symposium we hope to define how community support, family-centered services, and social protection, can enhance the efforts of health care systems to end mother to child transmission of HIV.

For further information or general inquiries, contact:

The Teresa Group
124 Merton Street, Suite 104
Toronto, Ontario, M4S 2Z2, Canada

Tel: 416-596-7703
Fax: 416-596-7910

E-mail: childrensymposium@teresagroup.ca

45th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction

Applied Reproductive Biology: Making It Relevant

12–15 August 2012
The College of Agricultural Sciences
The Pennsylvania State University
State College, Pennsylvania

 Royan International Twin Congress

The 8th International Congress on Stem Cell Biology and Technology will be held in conjunction with the 13th Congress on Reproductive Biomedicine (Royan International Twin Congress), September 5-7, 2012 in Tehran, Iran.

Royan Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Technology (RI-SCBT) as one of premier institutes conducting researches on Stem Cells is continually pursuing the aim to enhance research and development of stem cells and developmental biology for improvements in regenerative medicine. Therefore, RI-SCBT would like to give the opportunity for stem cell and biology scientists as well as physicians to debate and exchange their findings in a scientific and energetic atmosphere. To meet this goal, since 2005, we have annually held this scientific meeting.

The increasing number of participants and submitted articles during this event indicates the progression of stem cells among basic and clinic professions. Each year about 2000 participants, including enthusiastic young researchers and principal investigators from Iran as well as internationally, participate in this annual event. Moreover, internationally renowned expert scientists in stem cells research discuss their achievements during this program