• Reproductive Health
• contraception behavior
• family planning services
• Contraceptive Agents, Female
• Contraceptive Devices, Female

We read with interest the recent article on healthcare professionals’ views on a new postpartum contraception audiovisual animation,1 having developed a similar resource for use in low-income countries2 as part of the Global Library of Women’s Medicine (GLOWM) Welfare of Women (WoW) programme.3 Both animations aim to provide information to women about postpartum contraception, including return to fertility after birth, and help to address a lack of awareness or misinformation regarding contraception, birth spacing and complications of short interpregnancy intervals. Both were designed to be widely accessible, inclusive, cost-effective and shareable for use in a range of healthcare settings and across diverse digital platforms and devices. The differences in content and emphasis reflect those in the rates of maternal mortality and morbidity, literacy and education, cultural and ethnic diversity, and access to information and contraception of the different target populations. The WoW video is longer, including additional content such as lactational amenorrhoea, fertility awareness and barrier methods.

The WoW programme, established in 2024, is designed to provide reliable health guidance empowering women to care for themselves and their families. Our postpartum contraception animation is part of a wider series in development covering over 30 key health topics, ranging from human reproduction and general contraception to cervical and breast screening, pregnancy, abortion and menopause. Each animation is also accompanied by more detailed text-based information for those with greater literacy and relevant weblinks for women with internet connectivity. All animations are piloted and reviewed by a diverse and international group of women and healthcare professionals. The need for consistency and coordination of the development process and format of the animation across the programme presents both constraints and opportunities for economies of scale.

The WoW and NHS Lothian animations both feature eye-catching, simple graphics and clear voiceovers accompanied by on-screen text. Different approaches were taken regarding the representation of different ethnicities across both animations to facilitate accessibility. The NHS Lothian animation includes diverse ethnicities within a single animation, often rapidly changing across a particular image. By contrast, GLOWM’s WoW programme provides four different versions of the same animation, each representing a broadly different ethnic group (figure 1), which can be selected at the outset by the viewer.4 The NHS Lothian animation has been translated into four other languages, while the WoW programme uses a bespoke digital platform which facilitates translation of video text and voiceover into any language. While GLOWM currently uses a human-generated voiceover for the English version of its videos, pilot work with artificial intelligence (AI) has provided encouraging results facilitating multiple language versions, although with less natural delivery, altered pace and emphasis. Concerning dissemination, both animations can be shared online or via text message. The WoW animation is on the GLOWM website and will be available via YouTube, a dedicated app, and other websites for use in remote, rural clinics and community centres.

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Figure 1

The Global Library of Women’s Medicine (GLOWM) Welfare of Women (WoW) animations can be viewed in four different non-specific ethnicities.

Animations represent an innovative way to disseminate key information on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) topics to a diverse population both in the UK and globally, addressing challenges linked to literacy, language, cultural diversity and information access. Our experience in producing the WoW postpartum contraception animation echoes the challenges reported by Simpson, Cooper and Cameron1 regarding the need to provide specific and sufficiently detailed information to be helpful yet generalisable across a wide range of settings. We hope that highlighting this specific WoW animation and the wider set of global, free resources will be of interest to the BMJ SRH global readership and facilitate synergies across similar future initiatives in SRH.