The Motherhood Group event hears that black women suffer effects of unconscious bias within system
Unconscious bias in the UK healthcare system is contributing to the stark racial disparity in maternal healthcare outcomes, a conference has heard.
The Black Maternal Health Conference UK also heard that black women not being listened to by healthcare professionals was also a contributing factor.
Continue reading...What do we make of a nation that has made giving birth so dangerous – yet forces more and more women to do it?
America is in a maternal health crisis. According to new CDC data released this week, the rate of maternal mortality – defined as deaths during pregnancy or within 42 days of giving birth – rose by 40% in 2021. At a rate of 33 deaths for every 100,000 live births, 1,205 women died of maternal causes that year. That rate was more than twice as high for Black women, whose maternal mortality rate was 70 deaths for every 100,000 live births. The latest federal compilation of data from reviews of maternal deaths suggests that 84% were preventable.
Experts believe that 2021’s spike in maternal mortality can be attributed at least partly to the Covid-19 pandemic, though it’s not clear exactly how. Perhaps infection and exposure to the virus made pregnant women more vulnerable; perhaps the pandemic caused some women to delay or forgo prenatal care as hospitals strained to treat the surge of virus patients and shutdowns made all kinds of care harder and riskier to get.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Continue reading...Research shows opioid painkillers are unlikely to harm breastfed babies – but history shows how often women have been expected to sacrifice their own health
New research just published in the BMJ has found that women should not be denied opioid painkillers after childbirth as the drugs are unlikely to harm breastfed babies. This is a welcome step for new parents who are all too often left to deal with painful recovery from childbirth without adequate relief.
But it also highlights a much larger problem. As an historian of women’s health, and someone who is currently pregnant and dealing with severe back pain, it is clear that pain during pregnancy, childbirth and afterwards has been, and remains, routinely dismissed and diminished.
Agnes Arnold-Forster is a writer and historian of medicine and healthcare
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Continue reading...Concerns that Scotland lagging behind rest of UK as anti-abortion protests continue outside clinics
Pro-choice campaigners are urging all Scottish National party leadership candidates to commit to accelerating the imposition of protest-free buffer zones around abortion clinics as healthcare professionals describe the “remorseless” impact of anti-choice activity on their working lives.
Amid growing concern that Scotland is trailing behind the rest of the UK, after safe access zones passed their final parliamentary hurdle in the Commons last week, there was a protest and counter-protest outside the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow at the weekend. The clinic offers a range of services including abortion, support for sexual assault victims and transgender healthcare.
Continue reading...It’s never too early or late to use nutrition to improve brain health. From iodine intake to avoiding ultra-processed foods, here’s what to bear in mind
While the foundations of brain structure and function are laid during pregnancy and early life, the brain is constantly being fuelled and shaped by the food and drink we consume daily. We should be thinking of brain health like a pension plan; it is best to start as early as possible so that you have more to draw from when you need it. That said, it is never too late to invest in your brain health. Here is how to use nutrition to aid the brain at each stage of life.
Continue reading...Australia offers world-class prenatal care but at the most difficult transition of our lives – after childbirth – it leaves us to fend for ourselves
In my nine months of pregnancy, I had more medical appointments than I remember having in my previous 35 years of life. When I told my GP I was pregnant, I received a stack of blood test and ultrasound referral forms, and once I selected an obstetrician this stack of forms became a weekly occurrence.
Despite the fact I never returned an abnormal result on any of the dozens of tests I had between conceiving and giving birth to my son, the tests just seemed to beget more tests, like some kind of medical Tough Mudder course full of elaborate obstacles I had to jump over – or waddle over with increasing difficulty – to earn the ultimate prize of having a baby.
Continue reading...A revealing new book challenges the notion of miscarriage as a blip in the past, rather than an experience that can reverberate in the present
“It’s the idea that everything is healed.” Jennie Agg is talking to me about miscarriage. Or, specifically, how it feels to have a baby after miscarriage – or miscarriages, plural; Agg had four before she gave birth to her boy. Life, Almost – her book detailing her experiences and investigating why miscarriage still remains such an under-researched and under-acknowledged experience – has just come out, and it’s a vital new examination of the subject, with each chapter given the title of some of the false, trite or dismissive things people say: “It’s just nature’s way”, “it’s not a real baby yet”, “everything happens for a reason”.
In a book full of insights, perhaps one of the most affecting is the dawning understanding of the legacy that pregnancy loss can have. There is still an absurdly prevalent notion that finally getting a healthy baby – as most couples who experience miscarriage will – somehow wipes the slate clean, and makes everything that has happened in the past melt away. “Any residual grief, trauma or yearning is supposed to be washed away by the arrival of a longed-for child,” she writes. “After all – you got what you wanted, didn’t you?”
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