Blog

By Guest Author, 9/7/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics released the fifth snapshot in the Family Snapshots: Life during the Pandemic series. In past blogs , we discussed the results of the survey that the HOPE team, in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics , Prevent Child Abuse America , and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) , conducted using the national online platform YouGov.com . This survey asked a national...

By Claudia Boyd Barret, East Bay Times, August 21, 2021 Krista Hayes, 32, of Oakland was delighted when she found out she and her husband were pregnant with their first child together. But she was also scared. She’d seen statistics showing that, as a Black woman in America, she was far more likely to die in childbirth, suffer labor complications or have a preterm baby than other women. She feared entrusting the momentous process of having a baby to a medical system that she felt had often...

By Giles Bruce, Center for Health Journalism, August 19, 2021 For some time now, early childhood experts have acknowledged that the first few years of a child’s life are critical for neurological development, and that growing up in a stressful environment can actually change the structure of the budding brain . Now researchers are increasingly finding that the human brain is shaped — quite literally, in some instances — by external forces while it is still in utero. “We really need to...

By Leah Wright Rigueur, The Atlantic, August 11, 2021 My first two children entered the world to the sound of my laughter—peals of uncontrollable laughter. When my third child was born on a cruelly hot night last summer in a sterile delivery room, his experience was no different. My reaction to birthing a child may have seemed bizarre to a besieged and battle-weary hospital staff in the midst of a pandemic, but I believe that my joy was a normal response to my scenario. Celebratory joy felt...

By Heather Tirado Gilligan, California Health Care Foundation, August 9, 2021 Throughout her pregnancy, Altagracia Mejía was nagged by feelings of anxiety and depression. Mejía, who lives in the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles, gave birth to her daughter Alexa in September 2020. Within two months, the new mother’s feelings shifted to thoughts of suicide. “In my most lucid moments, I ask myself over and over again what is happening to me ,” Mejía told Los Angeles Times reporter...

By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, August 5, 2021 When Kimberly Seals Allers delivered her first child at a top-rated New York City hospital 21 years ago, her wishes were ignored by doctors and nurses. Feeling disrespected and voiceless, she decided to confront the causes and to advocate for equity in pregnancy and childbirth for Black mothers and birthing people.* A journalist by trade, Seals Allers is author of three books on pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding; a...

By Kim Hooper, The New York Times, July 19, 2021 When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband and I took a parent prep class in which they talked at length about the signs of maternal postpartum depression. My husband took detailed notes. After all, I had a history of depression and occasionally fell down dark, deep rabbit holes from which only medication and therapy could pull me out. My husband, on the other hand, is the epitome of stable. When his parents died in our first few years...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers on Thursday approved the first state-funded guaranteed income plan in the U.S., $35 million for monthly cash payments to qualifying pregnant people and young adults who recently left foster care with no restrictions on how they spend it. The votes — 36-0 in the Senate and 64-0 in the Assembly — showed bipartisan support for an idea that is gaining momentum across the country. Dozens of local programs have sprung up in recent years, including some...

By Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post, July 9, 2021 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer detain most pregnant, nursing and postpartum women for deportation, reversing a Trump-era rule that permitted officials to jail thousands of immigrants in those circumstances, according to a new policy released Friday. ICE’s new policy is even more expansive than it was during the Obama era, when President Biden was vice president. The Obama administration generally exempted pregnant...

From Futures Without Violence, July 2021 This event is hosted by the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse, American College of Obstetricians, March of Dimes, and Futures Without Violence in conjunction with Representative Gwen Moore. As Congress addresses the threats to Black maternal health, it is important to also discuss the impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on maternal mortality. The briefing will highlight the leading causes of pregnancy-associated deaths...

By Sarah Hodin Krinsky and Christina Gebel, Maternal Health Task Force, May 31, 2021 Much has happened since we wrote the first blog in this series, Expanding Access to Doula Care: State of the Union in January 2020—not only regarding policy, but also the maternal newborn health landscape more generally. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, we started seeing and hearing about hospitals across the country banning doulas from supporting clients during birth. In some cases,...

At the outset of a Zoom visit with 7-week-old son James in my behavioral pediatrics practice, his mother Sondra explained to me that he is “stiff because of my medication.” While feeding him a bottle she told me she was unable to breastfeed due to the effects of MAT (medicated assisted treatment, now called medication for opioid use disorder, or MOUD.) It was not concern about her current use of methadone, which is widely considered to be safe for breastfeeding, but rather the in-utero...