Sexual & reproductive health

Sexual and reproductive health is about respectful relationships, positive body image, having safe and satisfying sex lives, and the ability to make choices

Good sexual and reproductive health is an important issue for women’s health and wellbeing. It is about healthy and respectful relationships, positive body image, having safe and satisfying sex lives, and the ability to make choices and decisions about their lives, including when, or whether, to consider having children.

INFORMATION DEVELOPED FOR ACT WOMEN
Women’s Health Matters has developed the following information resources for ACT women.
Sexual and reproductive information for ACT women
ACTeen Choices
Having a Baby in Canberra

Sexual and reproductive health affects women at every stage of their life as they go through changes associated with puberty, fertility, pregnancy, ageing and menopause. Physical changes caused by illness, medications, psychological effects like depression, what is happening in relationship or family, and general mental health and wellbeing can all also impact sexual and reproductive health.

Sexual and reproductive health is also linked to many other aspects of women’s health, including access to health screening (eg. mammogram, pap smears), testing for and protection from sexually transmitted infections (STI), contraception and fertility treatments.

This means that women need to use sexual and reproductive health services frequently and over their whole life course.

Thus, it is critical that women in the ACT have access to safe, affordable and acceptable health services, fertility and maternity care, and to timely support and services in relation to unplanned pregnancy (including termination of pregnancy services and support). Women also need accurate and reliable information so they can take control and make their own decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing.

The Canberra context

Few qualitative studies have been conducted exploring sexual and reproductive health service experiences among Australian women. So in 2018 Women’s Health Matters undertook research to explore the views of ACT women about their sexual and reproductive health needs.

This study confirmed that for ACT women to be able to make informed decisions about what is best for them they wanted accurate, reliable and up to date local information about their options. But our research also showed:

there was a lack of access to reliable local information to inform choices
the increasing costs of terminations of pregnancy services left many women with very high out-of-pocket co-payment costs
women’s choices about contraception were impacted by affordability and the lack of knowledge by doctors
women’s work and caring responsibilities impacted on their ability to focus on their sexual health and wellbeing
younger ACT women were less informed about available options for contraception and services compared to older ACT women.

Research we conducted in 2016 into pregnancy, birth and post-birth care in the ACT highlighted that more work needed to be done to improve the experience and health outcomes of women and their transition to motherhood. The report identified a need to more clearly assist ACT women to assess what local choices are available, which ones provided appropriate information and where and when they could be accessed.

What we are doing about it

Women’s Health Matters has for decades played a leading role in working to give ACT women access to safe, affordable and acceptable sexual and reproductive health services and advice.

This has included:

Informing the design of a new maternity access model for ACT public maternity services through consultations with women and service providers. Our findings were used to develop a more streamlined system for ACT women to learn about and access Canberra’s public maternity system.
Working with the AIDS Action Council to investigate and highlight the specific local issues for same sex attracted women in the ACT. This study sought the views of same sex attracted ACT women (both cis and trans) on their health and health needs, access to services, supports and information and the barriers to maintaining their health.
Partnering with Sexual Health and Family Planning ACT to develop a website—ACTeen Choices— to provide local information to younger ACT women (and their partners, families and friends) about sexual and reproductive health.
Developing information to support all who identify as women to access trusted reliable information about sexual and reproductive health across their life stages.
Influencing discussions with the ACT Government about more affordable access to contraception and termination of pregnancy, resulting in new legislation which gives ACT women greater and more affordable access to medical termination.
Initiating a campaign in response to ACT women’s concerns at having to pass Right to Life protestors when they were accessing termination of pregnancy services in the ACT. This led to the introduction of the 50-metre abortion clinic exclusion zones in the ACT.
In 2003 we took up the issue of the quality of maternity services to improve access and choice for women in the ACT. This was in response to concerns expressed by women about the models of care and the high rate of birth interventions as well as the insurance crisis precluding independent midwives from the workforce.