Women’s health across the life course in Malaysia: a narrative review of care gaps and opportunities for service integration

Abstract

Women’s healthcare in Malaysia spans several programmes and clinical settings, yet continuity between life stages is less well understood. This narrative review examines care, access and opportunities for service integration from adolescence through the reproductive years, pregnancy and postpartum, to menopause. It draws on PubMed and supplementary Malaysian public sources, grey literature and citation searches for publications from 1 January 2000 to 20 October 2026. The literature comprised 83 reports representing 81 underlying evidence sources. Of these reports, 45 concerned pregnancy and postpartum care, 15 preconception and reproductive care, 13 adolescence and 10 menopauses. Recurring barriers involved confidentiality, sociocultural acceptability, cost, reproductive planning, follow-up and referral coordination. Findings from individual studies are interpreted within their settings and distinguished from gaps in published evidence. Priorities for evaluation include trusted adolescent entry points, discussion of reproductive intentions during routine care, completion of postpartum and mental-health follow-up, and access to appropriate midlife care. We propose a primary-care framework that connects these functions through shared information and clearly assigned follow-up responsibilities. Limited database coverage, heterogeneous study designs and the absence of formal quality appraisal constrain the conclusions. The review identifies practical opportunities to improve continuity, while recognising that the proposed framework requires evaluation and that the available literature cannot establish the extent of service gaps nationally.