pregnancy: مايو 2020

الأحد، 31 مايو 2020

My first labour rocked me, but sharing our birth stories can empower new parents | Sophie Walker

Niko arrived blue and not breathing after 36 hours, but armed with more knowledge, I wasn’t fearful at the births of my other two children

Six years ago, while pregnant with my first son, I had hoped for a drug-free birth in a birth centre attached to a Melbourne public hospital. Not long into labour, I was already four centimetres dilated. I thought, “Yes! I’ve got this in the bag!” How wrong I was.

Niko arrived blue and not breathing 36 hours later. In that time, I had been transferred to the hospital and had an epidural and induction. When Niko’s heart rate dropped, an episiotomy and forceps helped to get him out. The doctors performed some miracle that had him breathing and back with me within a few minutes. But then I haemorrhaged almost 900 millilitres of blood. Fortunately, the skilled midwives quickly got the bleeding under control.

Sophie Walker has a masters in public health from Monash University and a bachelors in health science and international relations from Latrobe University

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السبت، 23 مايو 2020

It is a tragedy that women are being turned away from motherhood | Barbara Ellen

Intensifying economic pressures have led to plummeting birth rates in Britain and America

Financial insecurity is one of the best, most sensible reasons not to have a baby. It’s also one of the saddest and creepiest.

The US birthrate is at its lowest for 35 years, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The sharpest fall was teenagers, but rates dropped in almost every age and race group. There are indications that people are delaying having children until they’re older or don’t feel they should enlarge their families. There are similar drops elsewhere, including the UK in 2018, with the Office for National Statistics reporting a fall of 3.2% from 2017, down nearly 10% from 2012. In particular, millennial Britons appeared to be indefinitely deferring children because of practical considerations such as insecure work, low wages and unaffordable housing. Like I say, sensible, but sickening.

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الجمعة، 22 مايو 2020

Pregnant inmates languish in US prisons despite promises of release amid pandemic

Those who are incarcerated are ‘much more likely’ to get Covid-19 – and loved ones don’t understand why their pregnant family members are still locked up

Virginia’s 19-year-old daughter had been incarcerated for months in New York, at Bedford Hills correctional facility, where dozens of people had tested positive for Covid-19 and one woman has died from the disease.

The teen was almost 39 weeks pregnant as she languished in government custody amid the pandemic in early May. At the time, Virginia believed she would not be allowed to be with her during labor, to hold her child’s hand.

We went looking for evidence that states are thinking about how to take care of pregnant women. And we found that they’re not

It’s a sad situation to be pregnant and be incarcerated anyways. During the pandemic, it’s even worse

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السبت، 16 مايو 2020

Majority of pregnant women hospitalised with Covid-19 are from BAME background

‘Troubling’ data prompts advice for midwives and maternity workers about increased risk

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More than half of pregnant women who were hospitalised with coronavirus were from a black and minority ethnic background, a study has found, prompting experts to issue guidance for midwives to remain on high alert and lower the threshold for diagnosis by medical professionals.

The study found that 55% of pregnant women admitted to hospital with coronavirus from 1 March to 14 April were from a BAME background. The findings show women from a BAME background were four times more likely to be hospitalised with coronavirus than white women.

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الأربعاء، 13 مايو 2020

'Social mothers': the women who helped a Brazilian city halve its child death rate

Sobral had one of Brazil’s highest infant mortality rates, but a groundbreaking health scheme has halved its number of child deaths

Rita de Cássia, 46, chokes on her words and tears stream down her face as she recounts her time working with a new mother who was a frequent drug user.

She remembers when she first walked into the mother’s apartment she shared with her partner – also a drug user – and seeing it covered in mud. There was no toilet, and no sink; they had been sold to buy drugs. The other children in the family were asking for food but there was nothing to give them.

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الثلاثاء، 5 مايو 2020

I’ve lived with an eating disorder for half my life. I'm not ready for the baby question | Laura Elizabeth Woollett

Pregnancy is often talked about as a miraculous experience, but for now, eating for one is more than enough for me

I’ve always been funny about food. As a toddler, I’d refuse to eat if my food wasn’t arranged just so on my Babar plate. At 15, I got food poisoning, spent two days throwing up, and realised I liked the emptiness. When I had a growth spurt and people started saying I could model, I liked it even more.

My BMI dipped to 15.4 toward the end of high school, but at university I was happy simply maintaining my size 8 figure rather than whittling it down further. Moving in with my partner at 25, I stopped weighing myself altogether. It was freeing, living without the daily intrusion of numbers.

When a co-worker fell pregnant last year, a few months after my release from hospital, I noticed how quickly her body changed

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الاثنين، 4 مايو 2020

My four miscarriages: why is losing a pregnancy so shrouded in mystery?

After losing four pregnancies, Jennie Agg set out to unravel the science of miscarriage. Then, a few months in, she found out she was pregnant again – just as the coronavirus pandemic hit

I stepped out of Oxford Circus tube into mid-morning crowds and cold, bright sunshine. The consultant’s words were still ringing in my ears. “Nothing.” How could the answer be nothing? This was January 2018, six months since my third miscarriage, a symptomless, rather businesslike affair, diagnosed at an early scan. The previous November, I’d undergone a series of investigations into possible reasons why I’d lost this baby and the two before it.

That morning, we had gone to discuss the results at the specialist NHS clinic we’d been referred to after officially joining the one in 100 couples who lose three or more pregnancies. I had barely removed my coat before the doctor started rattling off the things I had tested negative for: antiphospholipid antibodies, lupus anticoagulant, Factor V Leiden, prothrombin gene mutation.

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الأحد، 3 مايو 2020

'I was alone': how giving birth is changing during the pandemic

Maternal care has been derailed due to coronavirus – and advocates warn the outcome could be disastrous for black mothers as they navigate US hospitals

Cristal Brown thought she would give birth with her mom and boyfriend by her side, and then draw her newborn close to breastfeed.

“That’s how I pictured it,” Brown said. “And it went totally the opposite. I was alone.”

I think where these two public health crises intersect is … they are thriving on the same forms of discrimination

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السبت، 2 مايو 2020

New York mother dies after raising alarm on hospital neglect

Amber Rose Isaac died less than four days after tweeting that she should write an exposé on ‘dealing with incompetent doctors’

Amber Rose Isaac tweeted on 17 April about how she would write an exposé on “dealing with incompetent doctors” in the Bronx while pregnant with her first child.

Less than four days later, she was pronounced dead after a caesarean section went wrong. She died alone as New York City battled with coronavirus.

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