Blog

By Heather Tirado Gilligan, California Health Care Foundation, August 9, 2021 Throughout her pregnancy, Altagracia Mejía was nagged by feelings of anxiety and depression. Mejía, who lives in the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles, gave birth to her daughter Alexa in September 2020. Within two months, the new mother’s feelings shifted to thoughts of suicide. “In my most lucid moments, I ask myself over and over again what is happening to me ,” Mejía told Los Angeles Times reporter...

By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, August 5, 2021 When Kimberly Seals Allers delivered her first child at a top-rated New York City hospital 21 years ago, her wishes were ignored by doctors and nurses. Feeling disrespected and voiceless, she decided to confront the causes and to advocate for equity in pregnancy and childbirth for Black mothers and birthing people.* A journalist by trade, Seals Allers is author of three books on pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding; a...

By Kim Hooper, The New York Times, July 19, 2021 When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband and I took a parent prep class in which they talked at length about the signs of maternal postpartum depression. My husband took detailed notes. After all, I had a history of depression and occasionally fell down dark, deep rabbit holes from which only medication and therapy could pull me out. My husband, on the other hand, is the epitome of stable. When his parents died in our first few years...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers on Thursday approved the first state-funded guaranteed income plan in the U.S., $35 million for monthly cash payments to qualifying pregnant people and young adults who recently left foster care with no restrictions on how they spend it. The votes — 36-0 in the Senate and 64-0 in the Assembly — showed bipartisan support for an idea that is gaining momentum across the country. Dozens of local programs have sprung up in recent years, including some...

By Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post, July 9, 2021 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer detain most pregnant, nursing and postpartum women for deportation, reversing a Trump-era rule that permitted officials to jail thousands of immigrants in those circumstances, according to a new policy released Friday. ICE’s new policy is even more expansive than it was during the Obama era, when President Biden was vice president. The Obama administration generally exempted pregnant...

From Futures Without Violence, July 2021 This event is hosted by the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse, American College of Obstetricians, March of Dimes, and Futures Without Violence in conjunction with Representative Gwen Moore. As Congress addresses the threats to Black maternal health, it is important to also discuss the impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on maternal mortality. The briefing will highlight the leading causes of pregnancy-associated deaths...

By Sarah Hodin Krinsky and Christina Gebel, Maternal Health Task Force, May 31, 2021 Much has happened since we wrote the first blog in this series, Expanding Access to Doula Care: State of the Union in January 2020—not only regarding policy, but also the maternal newborn health landscape more generally. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, we started seeing and hearing about hospitals across the country banning doulas from supporting clients during birth. In some cases,...

At the outset of a Zoom visit with 7-week-old son James in my behavioral pediatrics practice, his mother Sondra explained to me that he is “stiff because of my medication.” While feeding him a bottle she told me she was unable to breastfeed due to the effects of MAT (medicated assisted treatment, now called medication for opioid use disorder, or MOUD.) It was not concern about her current use of methadone, which is widely considered to be safe for breastfeeding, but rather the in-utero...

Katie and Jason came to me at their wits’ end over four-year-old Mabel’s frequent meltdowns. “She’s been like this from birth,” Katie explained at our first visit. She described needing to nurse Mabel as an infant in a dark, quiet room because she was so easily distracted by sights and sounds. When I asked them to tell me about a recent specific moment of disruption, they described a visit to a county fair. Mabel was clearly so hungry that she was falling apart, yet despite the abundance of...

Research has found that women with depression during pregnancy, or with a history of depression, had a reduced quality of mother-infant interaction at both eight weeks and 12 months after their babies were born. In a study funded by National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) researchers examined whether depression, either before or during pregnancy, affects the mother-infant relationship. The research was published Tuesday 25 May in BJPsych Open.

Mei, mother of four-month-old Amy, called to make an appointment in my behavioral pediatrics practice. Her thick accent made it difficult for me to understand her concern over the phone. She arrived at my office with her husband, Yuan, who spoke little English. I learned that they had recently immigrated from China. Although I had a blanket on the floor covered with toys, Mei stood tentatively, her movements awkward and hesitant, until I suggested she put Amy down. Immediately Amy gave me a...

Join Wrestling Ghosts Director, Ana Joanes, and the Transform Trauma with ACEs Science Film Festival co0sponsors for a discussion about Parenting with ACEs on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, at 7 p.m. EST. Please go here to pre-register for the Zoom follow-up film discussion. Here's one of my favorite scenes from Wrestling Ghosts where the author of Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal, Donna Jackson Nakazawa, explains how and why early trauma impacts...