Men: Partners in Reproductive Health

Reproductive health programs have traditionally focused on women. Increasingly, however, we are recognizing men's influence in reproductive health. Men play key roles in supporting women's health, preventing unwanted pregnancies, slowing the transmission of sexually transmitted infections, making pregnancy and delivery safer, and reducing gender-based violence. Further, men themselves need access to clinical services and information on reproductive health, a need that must be assessed in the context of limited resources.

Men everywhere exert a strong influence over their partners, determining the timing and conditions of sexual relations, family size, and access to health care. The ways in which gender inequalities limit women's-and sometimes men's-access to health care pose a challenge to reproductive health services to overcome such injustices.

When reproductive health programs exclude men from consideration, they undermine their own effectiveness. Men's reproductive health directly affects that of their partners, though it has taken the AIDS epidemic to bring this reality into focus. Treating sexually transmitted infections with women makes little sense when the male partners who infected them are not involved in treatment and prevention education. Men can make motherhood safer by supporting the need for prenatal care, rest, and improved nutrition during pregnancy, and being actively involved during pregnancy and delivery. Men's support for limiting family size often makes it possible for women who want to use contraception or seek abortion to do so.

Many strategies exist to increase men's constructive participation in reproductive health. Programs need to promote communication and respect between men and women on reproductive health issues and to help build the negotiating skills of both sexes.

Of particular importance is the need to reach out to young and unmarried men whose ideas of gender roles and sexual scripts are not yet set in stone. Programs can improve access to services by making existing reproductive health services more receptive to men: welcoming men-both as clients and as supportive partners or fathers-retraining staff, providing information and services for men, hiring and training male counselors, and even altering clinic décor. And by providing information and referrals, reproductive health programs can raise men's awareness of the negative consequences of gender-based violence.

The mass media can play an important role in informing men about reproductive health and the roles they can play in protecting their own health and that of their partners. The media can also educate men about the ways in which their control over family resources, violence at home, or views of male or female sexuality, for example, can inhibit good reproductive health. Working with men in leadership positions who can influence other men and serve as advocates for women's health is another important strategy for encouraging men's positive involvement in reproductive health.