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EVERYTHING
Biden-Harris Administration Announces $500M+ in Maternal Health Efforts
What: The Biden administration announced a massive $440 million investment in at-home visits from “…nurses, social workers, and other trained health workers who work with families on early and ongoing engagement in prenatal care and postpartum support.” That support includes help breastfeeding, training on safe sleep for babies, developmental screening, and more. They also announced nearly $120 million from the CDC to enhance state committees that review pregnancy-related deaths, in an aim to understand causes and reduce future harm.
Why it matters: As VP Kamala Harris put it: “As someone who has spent my entire career fighting for the health and wellbeing of women and children, I am committed to addressing a maternal health crisis in which women across America are dying before, during, and after childbirth at higher rates than in any other developed nation. …Today, we are building on this lifesaving work by awarding more than $558 million to improve maternal health across America.”
Source: HHS
FERTILITY
Women Ignored at Yale Fertility Clinic Share Unspeakable Pain
What: USA Today has a gutting piece on the women who experienced egg retrieval surgeries at Yale Fertility Center – without pain medication.
Why it matters: A nurse was stealing the pain medication, and other practitioners inexplicably ignored the women writhing in pain. While this story was told (very successfully) in podcast format last year, it is important to be reminded of women’s experiences that went so deeply unheard:
“’My body was convulsing on the table, and I just remember the look of irritation on the doctor’s face,’ Rosenberg said. ‘He put his hands up and he said, ‘She has to stop moving, or I can’t do this procedure.’ At that moment, she told herself to “get it together,” and that it was her fault the doctor was so irritated. The nurse told her to take a deep breath and try again.”
Source: USA Today
MENSTRUATION
How Period Products Became a Casualty of Anti-Trans Campaigns
What: As part of an in-depth series on how anti-trans campaigns are reshaping America, The 19th looks at how providing tampons and pads in school restrooms went from something that Democratic *and* Republican states easily passed to a casualty of culture wars.
Why it matters: “For years, school nurses had been one of the only resources for students in need, many of them paying out-of-pocket for the products themselves. Legislators then successfully argued that schools should be providing those items. For a time, it was a winning strategy — an easy, bipartisan piece of legislation. Then something shifted. As anti-transgender rhetoric has picked up momentum in state chambers, period poverty bills have been caught in the crosshairs.”
Source: The 19th
ABORTION ACCESS
Abortion Trafficking Laws Are Already Here
What: States Newsroom has an in-depth look at Idaho and Tennessee laws that try to prohibit anyone from helping a pregnant minor get a legal abortion in another state without parental consent. (Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma had similar bills introduced in their most recent legislative sessions.)
Why it matters: The state laws face legal challenges for now, but “…critics warn that abortion trafficking laws could have grave implications not only for interstate travel, but also for personal speech and communication between friends, or between children and adults they trust. ‘If courts go down this road, it could change the scope of the First Amendment,’ Mary Ziegler, a legal historian and law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, told Stateline. ‘It could have an effect on what else qualifies as crime-facilitating speech, and that could limit the kinds of things people can say and do online and in other contexts.’”
**SCARY BONUS**The Lincoln Project released a video dramatizing what these laws could look like if Donald Trump wins the White House again.
Source: States Newsroom
MENOPAUSE
Should You Check Your Hormone Levels?
What: Women’s Health talks to Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health director Stephanie Faubion to get an expert’s take on the proliferation of at-home (and often pricey) hormone tests.
Why it matters: “’I want to empower women to take care of their own health, but checking and monitoring hormone levels all the time is probably not the best way to do that,’ [Faubion said.] …a ‘normal’ estrogen level ranges from 30 to 300, and there’s no data that says being closer to 30 or closer to 300 is better for you because every person reacts differently to different levels, says Dr. Faubion. Say your results come back with a level of 35—should you be concerned that your estrogen is low? ‘No, because next week it’s probably going to be 150,’ she says. ‘We all have hormone levels that vary; that’s what they’re supposed to be doing.’ This means that if you decide to check your hormone levels, you need to know not only their normal ranges, but the normal ranges for where you are in your cycle.”
Source: Women’s Health
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