April 2017

Like conception and implantation, birth requires an intention to be born, and preparation – the baby actually initiates labour, and must move into an optimal position if a relativity easy birth is to occur. The action of the actual birth stages is dynamic, and the baby is actively involved in that movement.

As part of her campaign to bring awareness to the negative effects of bullying and the current culture of violence, the reigning Miss Arizona, Katelyn Niemiec, will be speaking at Light Hall Auditorium on Thursday, April 20 beginning at 6:30 p.m. Niemiec was crowned Miss Arizona in June of 2016. While advancing her platform Bullying S.T.O.P.S. Here, she has devoted thousands of hours speaking at schools and communities as an advocate for the prevention of bullying. For the lecture, titled...

Children are the promise of tomorrow but are incredibly vulnerable to the caretakers they depend upon today. When children are at risk, it’s a risk we all share. Without intervention, the damage of early childhood abuse can last a lifetime. On any given day, there are more than 400,000 abused or neglected children in our nation’s foster-care system — and more than 1,500 in our tri-county area alone. Removing children from abusive environments is an absolute imperative. But it’s not enough.

In this incredibly competitive society of ours, how many of us truly feel good about ourselves? I remember once, as a freshman in college, after spending hours getting ready for a big party, I complained to my boyfriend that my hair, makeup, and outfit were woefully inadequate. He tried to reassure me by saying, “Don’t worry, you look fine.” “Fine? Oh great, I always wanted to look fine …” The desire to feel special is understandable. The problem is that by definition it’s impossible for...

Throughout his insurgent campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump spoke about the nation’s growing opioid epidemic, vowing to “ stop the flow of illegal drugs into the country. ” While these statements aligned with President Trump’s unsurprisingly tough stance on immigration, they also spoke to the real concerns of many rural, white voters who broke for Trump in states like Maine and West Virginia. On Wednesday, Trump appeared to make good on his promises to those voters, announcing that he...

If you were asked to imagine what a survivor of human trafficking looked like, how would you picture them? For someone exposed to stories of trafficking through blockbuster movies and Sunday night cable news specials, the image would probably be one of a woman, perhaps alongside images of someone who has done something awful to her. But who is that woman, outside that sensationalizing spotlight? She could be one of the nearly two million workers in the United States (according to an estimate...

Sen. Holly Mitchell sits at her desk on the fifth floor of the Capitol and holds up a book. On the cover a small boy in oversized jeans and a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt stands on a plastic milk crate, too small to reach, as a police officer presses the young child’s ink-soaked fingertips onto a piece of paper. “That image just stuck with me,” Mitchell said. The senator from Los Angeles is pushing a bill through the Legislature that would bar the state from prosecuting children under age 12. In...

When my son was five weeks old, he began to turn away from my breast even when hungry. He’d suck, then cry sharply, and twist away. I called the office of the pediatrician I’d chosen while pregnant, but she had no free appointments, so I saw another doctor in the practice instead. I’ll call him Dr. Jones. He examined my son, told me he had “gas pains,” and asked me, “Are you feeling anxious about being a good mom?” The next day my son seemed better. Was I overly anxious, I asked myself? Then...

Knowing is not enough. Just being informed about trauma, the neurobiology of trauma, epigenetics is not enough. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) asserts an organization is more than just informed once the program or organization: " Recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, staff, and others involved with the system; Responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices; and Seeks to actively...

Our Toolkit, called "Hard Times and Healing: Addressing the Intersections Between Domestic Violence and Other Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)" was launched at a statewide training with domestic violence advocates in Alaska at the end of February. In collaboration with the Washington State Domestic Violence Coalition and several tribes in Washington, the Toolkit will be shared through a series of training events in May, 2017. The concept of creating a toolkit on ACEs for domestic...

In 2015, New York announced it had reached a landmark settlement with the New York Civil Liberties Union, which sued over the state's aggressive use of solitary confinement to discipline inmates. Five Mualimm-ak is one of the activists who pushed for the changes. He spent five years in solitary and says it left him broken. "When people say you survived solitary? Nobody survives that," he says. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, agreed to a multi-year process phasing in limits on the time inmates...

People with schizophrenia may face an increased risk for serious infections, a new study suggests. "The preliminary data results suggest that individuals with schizophrenia have higher prevalence of all types of severe infections compared to the background population," study author Monika Pankiewicz-Dulacz, from the University of Southern Denmark, and colleagues wrote. "Clinicians should be aware that people with schizophrenia are the risk group for severe infections. General guidelines and...