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FERTILITY
The Birth Rate Fallacy
What: Foreign Affairs has experts explaining that the global drop in fertility rates is partly a product of women having children later in life—because how it is measured is a snapshot in time, not the total number of children per women over a lifetime. TLDR: it shouldn’t be used as a scare tactic by the incoming Trump administration.
Key line: “The heated rhetoric is interesting given that the United States, by comparison with other high-income countries, has a relatively high total fertility rate: 1.67 children per woman in 2023, versus 1.47. The lifetime fertility of the most recent cohort for whom data is available, women born in 1976, stands at 2.2 children per woman, equivalent to the average number of children the country’s men and women say they want to have.”
Source: Foreign Affairs
PREGNANCY + POSTPARTUM
Giving Birth Can Bring Financial Strain and Ruin in the United States
What: Researchers found giving birth could range from a financial strain to ruinous for Americans on employer-sponsored insurance. While around 80% of Medicaid patients paid nothing for labor and delivery, 60% of people on commercial insurance paid $1,000 or more out of pocket. And those Medicaid patients who did have out of pocket costs were more likely to have borrowed money or still owe money a year later.
Key line: “The cost of childbirth and postpartum health care results in significant and persistent financial hardship, particularly for families with lower income with commercial insurance. Medicaid offers greater protection for families with low income by offering reduced cost sharing for childbirth and postpartum health care, but even minimal cost sharing in Medicaid causes financial strain.”
Source: The Milbank Quarterly
ABORTION ACCESS
Abortion Pill Requests Skyrocket with Trump’s Election
What: The Guardian reports that requests for the abortion pill skyrocketed after Trump was elected on Tuesday, with one organization getting requests for 5,000 pills in less than 12 hours. They typically ship 9,000 pills in an entire month.
Key line: “The scenario repeated itself across the country as news of Trump’s victory broke, with women’s and trans health providers getting inundated with requests for services that their patients feared might be banned in a Trump administration. The telehealth service Wisp saw a 300% increase in requests for emergency contraception; the abortion pill finder site Plan C saw a 625% increase in traffic. ‘Clearly, people are trying to plan for the reproductive apocalypse that we anticipate will be happening under a Trump presidency,’ said Elisa Wells, the co-founder of Plan C.”
Source: The Guardian
The Voters Backing Trump and Opposing Abortion Bans
What: Donald Trump’s definitive win happened along with seven states that voted against abortion bans — which means there were millions of people who voted against abortion bans *and* FOR the man who put those bans in motion. Writer Jill Filipovic explores why and how.
Key line: “The positions of these voters are indeed incoherent. But they’re also reflective of the new political coalition Mr. Trump has built, and the kind of men and women who back him. …There’s something quite Trumpian about the ‘I’ve got mine’ style of politics that might drive someone to vote for abortion rights in her own state while not caring whether the president she picks will strip those rights from women elsewhere.”
Source: New York Times
MENOPAUSE
British Agency Backs Hormone Therapy First Over Talk Therapy for Menopause
What: A British health agency said hormone replacement therapy should be available in the country as a “first-line treatment” for menopause symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, depression, and insomnia. Last year, the same agency got fierce criticism for saying menopausal woman could get talk therapy (i.e cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT) to treat the same issues.
Key line: “NICE said it has responded to the feedback and rewritten the guidelines, which now say CBT could be considered for patients on HRT who still have symptoms, or those who are unable or do not wish to take HRT. Prof Jonathan Benger, chief medical officer and interim director of the centre for guidelines at Nice, said: ‘We are not suggesting that CBT is an alternative to HRT. It’s not an either/or, and we have worked through the guidelines extensively to really clarify this point.’”
Source: The Guardian
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