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PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM
Doulas May Face Challenges Becoming Medicaid Providers
What: Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families looks at the KFF and Health Management Association’s Medicaid report, highlighting the promises that expanded prenatal and postpartum care, like doula services, can offer, and challenges providers may face.
Why it matters: “Some doulas have found the process of becoming Medicaid providers to be difficult due to cost and administrative burden. To combat this challenge, New Jersey Medicaid staff are working with managed care organizations and the New Jersey Department of health to fund a Doula Learning Collaborative that will provide technical assistance.”
Source: Georgetown University
Black Women 20% More Likely to Get C-Sections
What: A study of nearly one million births in 68 hospitals in New Jersey found Black women were about 20 more likely to have a C-section, even if a “Black mother and a white mother with similar medical histories saw the same doctor at the same hospital.”
Why it matters: “The additional operations on Black patients were more likely to happen when hospitals had no scheduled C-sections, meaning their operating rooms were sitting empty. That suggests that racial bias paired with financial incentives played a role in doctors’ decision-making, the researchers said. How that bias creeps in is not entirely clear. Doctors may rush to perform a C-section faster for Black women, worried about the well-known racial disparities in childbirth outcomes. Black women may feel less empowered to push back against the suggestion of C-section when their labor is not progressing — or, when they do push back, they may be less likely to have their concerns taken seriously.”
Source: New York Times
ABORTION ACCESS
Abortion in the Presidential Debate: Harris Outlines Real, Bloody Consequences
What: Vice President Kamala Harris had her first debate against Republican nominee Donald Trump Tuesday night, where she outlined the real-life consequences of Trump’s abortion ban (outlined below.) Trump, in turn, lied about Democrats executing babies after they are born and called himself a “leader on fertilization.” (Unclear if that line was about grass at his golf courses, or the leader of the party edging up to banning IVF.)
Why it matters: “I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that. And I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.” — Kamala Harris
Source: ABC News (Transcript)
Missouri Will Get to Vote to Lift State’s Abortion Ban
What: Missouri’s state supreme court ruled that voters will get a say on a measure to undo the state’s abortion ban this November. Opponents tried to get the ballot measure removed on a technicality.
Why it matters: “Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the campaign backing the measure, lauded the decision. ‘Missourians overwhelmingly support reproductive rights, including access to abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care,’ campaign manager Rachel Sweet said in a statement. ‘Now, they will have the chance to enshrine these protections in the Missouri Constitution on November 5.’”
Source: Associated Press
ONCOLOGY
FDA Requires Providers to Tell Women If they Have Dense Breasts
What: All mammography reports in the United States must tell women about their breast density, after a Food and Drug Administration went into effect nationwide today.
Why it matters: “About half of women older than 40 in the United States have dense breast tissue, said radiologist Dr. Kimberly Feigin, interim chief of the Breast Imaging Service and head of the Breast Imaging Quality Assurance at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. ‘We talk about breast density for two reasons. One is that breast density can make it more difficult to spot a cancer on a mammogram, because dense breast tissue – the glandular elements and connective tissue supporting elements – looks white on a mammogram and cancer also looks white on a mammogram,’ Feigin said. In other words, dense breast tissue can hide cancer on a mammogram since the tissue appears white on a mammogram, in the same way lumps and tumors appear. ‘The second reason that breast density is important is because having dense breast tissue raises a woman’s level of risk of developing breast cancer,’ Feigin said.”
Source: CNN
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