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[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Williams AB, Smith ER, Trujillo MA, et. al. Common health problems in safety-net primary care: Modeling the roles of trauma history and mental health. J Clin...

By Colleen Shalby, May 11, 2020, LA Times Staff Writer. COVID-19 has hit all walks of life in Los Angeles County, from wealthy enclaves to working-class neighborhoods, as well as prisons and nursing homes. Officials have warned that the most vulnerable individuals to developing serious effects from the novel coronavirus include women who are pregnant. But little is known about how pregnant women have fared since the pandemic began, as their numbers are not typically broken out in overall...

By Alyce Palko, April 30, 2020, Jewish Healthcare Foundation. Introducing the Jewish Healthcare Foundation's new ROOTS publication, Beyond Medicalization: Midwives and Maternity Care in America . Under the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is rapidly moving into a new era of healthcare delivery. Across the country, maternal healthcare policies are changing daily in order to ensure birthing families have access to safe care. Hospitals are making rapid decisions about whether birthing...

By April Simpson, April 18, 2020, PEW Trust Black women are two to three times more likely to die from causes related to pregnancy than white women, regardless of income or education. Black midwives could be part of the solution, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, but restrictions on midwifery make it difficult to practice in many states. Pregnant women in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi have been calling nonstop to CHOICES Midwifery Practice in Memphis, but the center is...

Please the attached toolkit for more information. From the toolkit: Best practices when working with clients Given how new this virus is, we currently have very little data on how it might affect pregnant people and newborns. Guidelines from the CDC outline recommendations for how to support pregnant and laboring people with Coronavirus. (3) There is currently no evidence that the virus is spread from mother to baby in utero, or that it is transmitted in human milk. (4)

Paid leave for parents during COVID-19 emergency

By Richa Bhatia, MD, March 11, 2020, Psychology Today New research reviews the benefits of maternity leave. About 23 percent of employed women in the U.S. return to work within 10 days of giving birth. An evidence-based review published in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry earlier this week, which was authored by my team and I, shows that paid maternity leave is linked with significant physical and mental health benefits for mothers as well as their children. [ Please click here to read the...

By Theresa Vargas, March 25, 2020, Washington Post Ariane Audet grows quiet on the phone. She is usually the one posing questions about motherhood, and now, she’s not sure how to answer one I’ve asked her. What do you think would have happened if you had to give birth now? She stays silent for so long that I glance at my phone’s screen to make sure we didn’t get disconnected. “I’m afraid to say it,” she finally says. “But I don’t know if I would still be alive.” Three years ago, Audet gave...

By Rachel Tepper Paley, March 10, 2020, The Washington Post In the days following the birth of my daughter, my postnatal plan included the usual Western treatments: ice packs and numbing spray, tush pillows and mesh underwear. But my background as an Ashkenazi Jew merited an additional, culinary regimen: so-called Jewish penicillin, a.k.a. chicken noodle soup. On one hormone- fueled afternoon, I wept tears of joy into a steaming bowl of schmaltzy broth — such was its power. The notion that...

By Emily Bobrow, April 1, 2020, for The New Yorker Early on Sunday, March 22nd, Lauren Pelz got a text from a friend who’d heard that the NewYork-Presbyterian (N.Y.P.) hospital network had decided to bar partners from accompanying women in labor, due to concerns about the spread of covid -19 . It was the day before Pelz was scheduled to be induced to deliver her second child at N.Y.P. Lower Manhattan Hospital. She searched the hospital’s Web site and Twitter feed for news about the change in...

By Kirstie Brewer, April 1, 2020 for BBC News The coronavirus crisis is throwing many pregnant women's birth plans up in the air and leading some health trusts to increase home births. The image captured hearts on social media 10 days ago. Faolán, Gaelic for "little wolf", was born in Drogheda in Ireland on Saturday 14 March and a few days later his grandfather dropped round to see him - through the window. He stayed for 10 minutes, gazing at his first grandchild. It was hard to have family...

Dear colleague, Coronavirus is forcing providers and allied professionals serving mothers and babies to make unprecedented decisions. Should pregnant women needing care go through our hospital quarantine entrance? Should moms deliver without partners, family or doulas present? Be sent home early before key screenings or jaundice treatment are completed? To make matters worse, our systems aren't ready for basic remote care of mothers and infants now "socially distanced". Prenatal, post-partum...