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From St. Louis Department of Health, March 10, 2021 Thanks to a $1 million grant from Merck for Mothers and the Yellow Chair Foundation, St. Louis has become one of nine Safer Childbirth Cities. The award was granted to Generate Health and Jamaa Birth Village to support the STL 360 Doulas Initiative, a new collaborative to expand access to doula care. The new initiative is a partnership between Jamaa Birth Village, Generate Health, STL Doulas of Color Collective and Jesse Davis, MD, MBA,...

By Lisa Lerer and Jennifer Medina, The New York Times, March 30, 2021 Last March, as most of America worried about getting sick, Kate Farley had a different, urgent concern: having a baby amid a pandemic. The months after the birth of her third child were a blur of sleepless nights, followed by days spent managing remote school for her kindergartner, struggling to entertain her preschooler and setting up a classroom in her Middletown, N.J., home. By the time Ms. Farley returned to work in...

By Abigail Abrams and Abby Vesoulis, Time, March 18, 2021 When Maile Chand reminisces about her 2016 pregnancy, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t how she prepared her daughter’s nursery or vetted baby names. Instead, she remembers constantly struggling to find enough money for food and rent in San Francisco. Chand was just 20 years old at the time, living in the nation’s most expensive city, and working a low-paying retail job while attending community college. Navigating San...

"Attachment Trauma is the severe disruption or dysfunction of the infant-maternal bond. This can result from stress and dysfunction in the family, mental health problems in the mother, and/or extended separation from the mother. These are traumatic experiences regardless of when they occur during childhood. However, when they occur during the first 2 years of life they have a uniquely damaging impact, leading to Attachment Trauma." Originally posted at CPTSDFoundation.org: ...

Calling all DV Advocates! Now is a great time to support survivors in getting enrolled in health insurance. A special open enrollment period for health coverage through Healthcare.gov is now happening until August 15th, 2021 to mitigate the loss of coverage many experienced due to job loss during the COVID-19 Pandemic. This presents an important opportunity for people who have not had coverage or have lost coverage to get access to affordable health care. Find out the Top 5 Ways That DV/SA...

Thank you to Aidan Phillips from the WAVE Trust for his excellent and engaging presentation for attendees of our monthly Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) call for March. The information he shared is invaluable as we continue our work to influence change at the national level through the National Trauma Campaign . If you were unable to join, would like to watch again, or want to share with others, you can find the call recording here . Additionally, if you would like...

From Administration for Community Living and Department of Health and Human Services, March 2021 Persistent maternal health disparities related to race, ethnicity, and income have garnered recent national policy attention. A growing body of research examining women with disabilities' experiences with reproductive health reveals that disparities also exist between women with and without disabilities. The purpose of this brief is to summarize findings about reproductive education, experiences,...

Please join us for our next installment of A Better Normal, our live webinar series in which we imagine and create our society as trauma-informed! You may have seen we changed our name recently from ACEs Connection to PACEs Connection. Please join us to learn all about the groundbreaking research of Positive Childhood Experiences and how this is going to transform the work we are all doing. >>Click here to register<< PACEs and HOPE Live Event Friday, March 26, 2021 Noon PT / 1pm...

By Jessica Grose, The New York Times, March 17, 2021 If your child is not potty trained, how many diapers do you have on hand right now? That’s a question I certainly wouldn’t have been able to answer with any specificity when my children were babies. But it’s a question that parents who struggle to afford the expense — about $70-$80 per month, per baby — can answer easily, because managing diaper need is among their most significant anxieties. That’s what a new study from Jennifer Randles,...

By Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Alexandra E. Petri, The New York Times, March 4, 2021 Congress is considering a new bill that could provide women across the country who face pregnancy discrimination a clear channel for recourse. It took only eight years, six legislative sessions and thousands of lawsuits — including one that made it to the Supreme Court — to get to this point. And now it might finally pass. The new bill , known as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, or PWFA, was first...

By Ashley Nguyen, The Lily, March 1, 2021 LaToya Morris felt “terrified” throughout her pregnancy. Last year, as she neared 35, Morris constantly worried about experiencing a miscarriage or stillbirth. “Every day was a struggle for me,” Morris said. “I was scared that I was going to lose my baby.” [ Please click here to read more .]

By Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Alexandra E. Petri, The New York Times, March 4, 2021 Congress is considering a new bill that could provide women across the country who face pregnancy discrimination a clear channel for recourse. It took only eight years, six legislative sessions and thousands of lawsuits — including one that made it to the Supreme Court — to get to this point. And now it might finally pass. The new bill , known as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, or PWFA, was first...