Stories of Hope

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...