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EVERYTHING
Trump Already Hurt Contraception Access. He Could Make it Even Worse.
What: Politico has a deep dive on how Donald Trump could restrict millions of Americans’ access to contraception—without issuing an outright ban. They remind us that when he was in the White House, Trump’s “biggest impact on contraception access came from its overhaul of the federal Title X program, which provides free and subsidized birth control, STD screenings and other services to millions of low-income people.” The Trump administration cut program grants from three years to eight months and “banned providers from referring patients for an abortion or discussing it as an option and required clinics to construct fully separate facilities for the procedure and other services.”
Why it matters: “The Project 2025 blueprint urges Trump to reinstate restrictions on Title X ‘quickly’ and require participating clinics ‘provide information to customers about the importance of marriage’ and ‘focus on better education around fertility awareness.’”
Source: Politico
Get Familiar with New Pregnant Worker Rights
What: Harvard Business Review has a piece explaining everything employers need to do now thanks to the recently enacted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. But it’s a good run down for anyone working a job to be familiar with – so share it widely!
Why it matters: Employees now have a right to “attend prenatal care appointments (grant requests for time off)”, “eat more due to breastfeeding (provide additional lunch break or allow snacking)”, “attend appointments for IVF (allow schedule changes)”, and “recover from childbirth, miscarriage, or abortion (provide leave)”, among many other changes.
Source: Harvard Business Review
PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM
Extreme Heat Can Mean More Preterm Babies
What: Rupa Basu, a researcher in California’s EPA, was inspired by her own pregnancy experience to research how heat, especially extreme heat, affects birth rates. She looked at 60,000 births from May to September over several years in California, and found “higher rates of preterm births during higher temperatures.” That study came out 10 years ago – since then, Basu “co-authored a review of 57 studies that found a significant association between air pollution and heat exposure with preterm birth and low birth weight. Scientists have found an association between heat exposure and preterm birth rates in every developed nation, and in the few developing nations to conduct studies so far.”
Why it matters: The world is getting hotter, and the US has the highest preterm birth rate in the developed world.
Source: The 19th
Fighting Sepsis, a Major Killer of New Moms
What: NIH’s Medline magazine looks at the rise of sepsis cases among pregnant women and new moms, which are the second-biggest cause of maternal deaths in the United States. The piece details research the NIH is doing to help prevent sepsis, including improving screening tools.
Why it matters: “Researchers found that screenings done between 20 weeks (about five months) of pregnancy and three days after delivery were more accurate when the provider used a pregnancy-adjusted tool. Screenings done outside that timeframe should be done with the tools that are not pregnancy-adjusted.”
Source: NIH
ABORTION ACCESS
Antiabortion Doc Gets Spot on Texas Maternal Mortality Committee
What: Texas’ health department appointed Ingrid Skop, an extreme anti-abortion OBGYN, to the state’s committee that reviews cases of pregnancy-related deaths.
Why it matters: Skop can use her position to ignore or hide evidence that women are dying because they are not getting abortions when they need them. There’s also a more sinister element to her position—she could use the information from the committee to help the state go after doctors she suspects are providing abortions.
Source: ABC
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