For migrant and refugee women on the Thailand-Myanmar border, access to good antenatal care is not a given. Conflict, migration, distance and limited resources have a major impact on the care women can access and on pregnancy outcomes.
This PhD symposium will focus on Taco Jan Prins’s PhD research centrally. Taco Jan works with migrant and refugee communities on the Thailand-Myanmar border and is conducting PhD research into reproductive health and access to perinatal care in resource-limited settings.
Speakers from Thailand, Myanmar and beyond will share their knowledge and experiences from different perspectives on topics including antenatal care, safe childbirth, access to healthcare and the broader health context in the border region. In this way, the symposium brings together research and practice, creating a space to jointly examine both the challenges and opportunities for improving care for migrant and refugee women.
Speakers
Marcus Rijken
Invisible pregnancies: You only realise it once you’ve been through it
Why do some pregnancies and some pregnancy losses remain unseen? Why do some babies never get the chance to be born alive, and what can we do about it? Drawing on the core principles of global healthcare – such as equality and equity, and the three delays in access to care – this lecture takes us to the boundary between Thailand and Myanmar. Taco Jan’s PhD research into stillbirths shows that, once you know what to look for, you simply cannot fail to see it.
Marcus Rijken is a gynaecological oncologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) in Amsterdam and a lecturer in Global Health at UMC Utrecht. He spent six years working in refugee camps on the Thai-Myanmar border, where he completed his PhD on malaria during pregnancy and foetal growth.
Equality, collaboration, context-specific access to care and friendship are key pillars of his clinical and academic work.
Nyunt Naing Thein
Competency-Based Standardisation of the Health Workforce
What makes a good healthcare provider, and how do we officially recognise the qualifications of locally trained nurses, midwives and healthcare workers? Along the border between Thailand and Myanmar, they have been playing a vital role in maternal and child healthcare for many years. Dr Nyunt Naing Thein will engage in dialogue with ethnic health leaders on this matter and explore how international experts and educational institutions can contribute to a credible, competence-based system for recognition and certification.
Dr Nyunt Naing Thein has over three decades’ experience of supporting migrants and displaced communities from Myanmar along the border between Thailand and Myanmar. Since 1989, he has been working with health and social organisations, local NGOs, Thai institutions and international aid organisations. He is currently a Senior Technical Advisor at the Mae Tao Clinic and the Suwannimit Foundation, where he focuses on capacity building, mentoring and the development of healthcare staff.
Taco Jan Prins
A reduction in stillbirths over four decades of change on the Thailand–Myanmar border
What is needed to reduce the number of stillbirths in a context characterised by forced migration, limited resources and recurring conflicts? Drawing on 37 years of data on pregnancy outcomes amongst refugee and migrant communities along the Thailand–Myanmar border, this presentation shows how the number of stillbirths fell from From 26 to 8 per 1,000 births. These figures highlight the importance of good antenatal care, expert support during childbirth and locally trained healthcare professionals.
Taco Jan Prins is a doctor specialising in International Health and worked as a doctor at the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit from 2022 to 2026. During this period, he conducted doctoral research into the perinatal outcomes of pregnant women from migrant or refugee backgrounds who live on the fringes of the healthcare system in the border region between the Thai province of Tak and the Myanmar state of Kayin. His thesis, Invisible Pregnancies: Improving Perinatal Outcomes for Migrant and Refugee Women on the Margins of the Health Systems at the Border between Tak Province, Thailand, and Kayin State, Myanmar, he carried out the study in collaboration with Amsterdam UMC, the University of Amsterdam and Chiang Mai University.
Programme
| Time | Session | Subject | Speaker |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16.00 | Opening | Invisible pregnancies: You only realise it once you’ve been through it | Marcus Rijken |
| 16.20 | Presentation | Obstetric health on the Thailand–Myanmar border | Cynthia Maung |
| 16.40 | Presentation | Competency-based standardisation of the health workforce | Nyunt Naing Thein |
| 17.00 | Break | ||
| 17.15 | Presentation | A reduction in stillbirths over four decades of change on the Thailand–Myanmar border | Taco Jan Prins |
| 17.35 | Q&A | ||
| 18.00 | Closure |
Dutch
English