Tagged With "Pregnant women"
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Adolescent antecedents of maternal and paternal perinatal depression: a 36-year prospective cohort (Psychologic Medicine)
Thomson KC, Romaniuk H, Greenwood CJ, et al. Adolescent antecedents of maternal and paternal perinatal depression: a 36-year prospective cohort [published online ahead of print, 2020 Apr 28]. Psychol Med . 2020;1-8. doi:10.1017/S0033291720000902. Abstract Background: Rates of common mental health problems (depression/anxiety) rise sharply in adolescence and peak in young adulthood, often coinciding with the transition to parenthood. Little is known regarding the persistence of common mental...
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Psychological impact of COVID-19 quarantine measures in northeastern Italy on mothers in the immediate postpartum period (Int J Gynsecol Obstet)
Zanardo V, Manghina V, Giliberti L, Vettore M, Severino L, Straface G. Psychological impact of COVID-19 quarantine measures in northeastern Italy on mothers in the immediate postpartum period. Int J Gynaecol Obstet . 2020;150(2):184-188. doi:10.1002/ijgo.13249 Abstract Objective: To explore whether quarantine measures and hospital containment policies among women giving birth in a COVID-19 "hotspot" area in northeastern Italy enhanced psycho-emotional distress in the immediate postpartum...
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ACEs and Gynecological Problems - A Conversation Starter
Gynecological problems as a result of ACEs, and particularly of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA), are rarely discussed in books and articles about the ACEs. The author would like to see that issue become part of the ACEs conversation.
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ACEs research roundup: ACEs, racism, promoting equity and resilience
Racial /Ethnic Disparities in Health Care Access Are Associated with Adverse Childhood Experiences , Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Racism , Psycho-Social Stress, and Health-related Quality of Life International Journal of Maternal Child Health and AIDS Promoting equity and resilience: Wellness navigators' role in addressing adverse childhood experiences American Psychological Association Co‐Occurring Youth Profiles of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Protective Factors:...
Comment
Re: Why the dean of early childhood experts wants to get beyond the brain [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
As I pointed out in my recent blog (ACEs and Gynecological Problems - A Conversation Starter) the disruption of hormones they talk about in the ACEs literature also affect women's reproductive organs and those recurring traumatic experiences trigger like none other. Since this happens to young women, who become the mothers of other young women, I feel it is critical that it deserves a place in the spotlight!
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Infant Feeding During COVID: Strategic Planning for Pregnancy, Postpartum and Beyond [ucsf.edu]
Nationally, Black women have the lowest rates of breastfeeding initiation in comparison to any other racial/ethnic groups. Black babies are dying at twice the rate of White babies and according to the CDC, increasing breastfeeding among Black women can decrease infant mortality rates up to 50 percent. In honor of Black Breastfeeding Week (August 25th – 31st), we partnered with the BreastFriends Mommy Group in West Oakland to explore why these rates look different for Black women and...
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SF announces pilot program to provide basic income to pregnant Black and Pacific Islander women [sfgate.com]
By Tessa McLean , SFGATE Updated 3:30 pm PDT, Wednesday, September 16, 2020 Mayor London Breed announced today the launch of a new pilot program that will provide a basic income to Black and Pacific Islander women during pregnancy and after giving birth. The 150 women chosen will receive a monthly income supplement of $1,000 for the duration of their pregnancy and for the first six months of their baby’s life, with the goal of eventually providing a supplement for up to two years...
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A new program in Mississippi is helping Black mothers breastfeed. Here's why it's crucial. (upworthy.com)
The Delta Baby Cafe in Sunflower County, Mississippi is providing breastfeeding assistance where it's needed most. Mississippi has the third lowest rate of breastfeeding in America. Only 70% of infants are ever-breastfed in the state, compared to 84% nationally. There are multiple reasons why Black women are less likely to breastfeed their children. First, according to the CDC , maternity wards that serve large Black populations are less likely to help Black women initiate breastfeeding...
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Accessibility of perinatal mental health services for women from Ethnic Minority groups (The Strategy Unit)
By Jake Parsons, September 2020, source BMC Medicine. Mental illness is common during pregnancy and first postnatal year (perinatal period), and up to 20% of women experience a wide range of mental health conditions. Barriers to accessing mental health care during pregnancy and the first postnatal year (perinatal period) seem to be greater for ethnic minority women. As a consequence of these barriers, mental illness during the peri-natal period frequently remains untreated. This can have a...
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COVID-19: Trauma-Informed Perinatal Care and Maternal Health [psychologytoday.com]
By Ann Diamond Weinstein, Psychology Today, September 28, 2020 The experience of life during the pandemic and the impact of COVID-19 guidelines for perinatal care have changed the maternal-fetal experience of pregnancy and birth, as well as the maternal-infant experience during the postnatal period. The neuroception (1) of danger and the potential threat to one’s own life and that of loved ones has been sustained since the magnitude and lethalness of the pandemic was fully appreciated.
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Report on WIC Role in Reducing Maternal Mortality (California WIC Association)
CWA Flash Newsletter - October 13, 2020 (Blue text=hyperlinks) Report on WIC Role in Reducing Maternal Mortality The National WIC Association released a report titled " The Role of WIC in Reducing Maternal Mortality ." NWA’s Maternal Mortality Task Force created the report to consider ways in which maternal mortality is addressed and discussed with program participants throughout the WIC appointment, as well as explore opportunities for additional focus on the topic. The report highlights...
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For Pregnant Women, Stigma Complicates Opioid Misuse Treatment [thefix.com]
By Amarica Rafanelli 10/22/20, for The Fix.com New and expectant mothers face unique challenges when seeking treatment for an opioid use disorder. On top of preparing for motherhood, expectant mothers often face barriers to accessing treatment, which typically involves taking safer opioids to reduce dependency over time. The approach is called medication assisted therapy, or MAT, and is a key component in most opioid treatment programs. But with pregnant women, providers can be hesitant to...
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Maternal Mental Health
Like many of you, I’m a bit out of sorts and somewhat disoriented right now. Our collective mental health is deteriorating during Covid-19. Recent stats report an increase from 20-40% of adults struggling with mental illness since the advent of the pandemic. Maternal mental health is particularly at risk. Helping children with distance learning, navigating exposure to the news, trying to keep life a bit “normal”, keeping family members fed and supplied, juggling career and income loss, all...
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Low levels of choline in pregnant Black American women associated with higher levels of stress (Mirage News)
NOVEMBER 17, 2020 5:08 AM AEDT Women with lower levels of choline delivered prematurely by 2 weeks, increasing risk of later mental health problems for their offspring. Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campu s have found that many pregnant Black Americans have low levels of choline, an essential nutrient that aids in prenatal brain development. Stress caused by institutional racism may play a role. The study, out now in Schizophrenia Bulletin , also found that these...
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New nonprofit breast milk bank launches in San Diego (sandiegouniontribune.com)
San Diego — Every year, about 260 of the tiniest premature babies in California hospitals develop an often-fatal bowel disease known as necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC. Nobody knows what causes NEC, but a common factor in many cases is the use of formula to feed these very low-birth-weight babies because the mother’s breast milk is not available. Replacing that formula with pasteurized breast milk in every California hospital newborn intensive care unit could be a positive step in reducing...
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Tools to Mitigate Work Stress and Prevent Burnout: For Health Care Providers during COVID and Beyond
Whether you work in a hospital, a safety net clinic, or in another health care setting, no health care provider working during the COVID-19 pandemic needs to read the flurry of news stories that highlight the extreme stress experienced by people in this line of work – you already know it firsthand. This webinar will introduce health care providers to the Community Resiliency Model ( CRM ), an evidence-based method of managing traumatic stress, preventing burnout and building resiliency. This...
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8 Categories of Adversity That Shape Health: Adverse Babyhood Experiences (ABEs), ACEs, and More
When I assisted women and families during pregnancy, labor and birth as a family doctor, I often felt concern that the interventions commonly used, while potentially life saving, influenced outcomes in ways that could be negative. I've since learned about a vast body of evidence that helps identify risk and offers tools to help recognize potential risk and effects so we can improve prevention and treatment. "ABEs" are one of 7 categories of adversity I add to ACEs that I wish I'd known about.
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12 Organizations That Support Black Women's Physical And Emotional Health [womenshealthmag.com]
By Naydeline Mejia, Women's Health, February 5, 2021 Everyone deserves access to resources that improve their physical and emotional health. But here's another truth: Black women's wellness needs are *not* always met or accessible. And many health care resources fail to speak to the unique experiences that Black people face. And no one fares worse from the poor treatment than Black women . In the U.S., Black women have the highest pregnancy mortality rates . During the period between 2014...
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United Way grant helps Good Samaritan treat postpartum depression [mywabashvalley.com]
By Web Desk, My Wabash Valley, February 9, 2021 Good Samaritan physicians and staff have been following perinatal depression trends throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. With the help of $9,970 from the United Way Lilly Endowment grant, the hospital will be able to establish a postpartum group therapy led by psychiatry residents for women with clinically significant levels of depression, anxiety or PTSD. The group therapy sessions will be a hybrid of in-person and virtual sessions. “Prior to...
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My ACEs Affected My Birth
High blood pressure. In your third trimester of pregnancy, you do not want to hear these three words, especially if you are planning to have a home birth. My blood pressure nearly caused me to have an induction for my first birth and transfer to a hospital birth for my second birth. I wish I had known of the ACEs test so I wouldn't have felt so lost and guilty. For my first birth I was clueless. I did not understand why this was happening to me because I ate a healthy diet, went to boxing...
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Resources shared by CA WIC Association
Hyperlinks share below came from the 2-23-21 CWA Flash Newsletter. Black History Month Tools and Resources for Breastfeeding Advocates Study Participants Needed! First Time Expecting Women & Birthing People CDC COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Toolkit NWA's Inaugural State of WIC Report Open Access Edition of Breastfeeding Medicine for Black History Month
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Depression, anxiety 'extremely high' among new mothers since start of social distancing [healio.com]
By Joe Gramigna, Healio News, February 19, 2021 Prevalence rates of clinically relevant depression and anxiety have been “extremely high” among postnatal women during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to study results published in Journal of Psychiatric Research. “There had been no data published examining mental health in new mothers during COVID-19 at the time of study,” Victoria Fallon, FHEA, CPsychol , of the department of psychology at the University of Liverpool in the UK, told Healio...
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Anxiety, Depression and Working Moms in a Pandemic
Covid-19 is a challenging time for all of us. People are limited to their homes, and social distancing is the requirement of the time to stay protected from this contagious virus. Although social distancing is the only thing stopping the spread of the virus, it is also becoming the number 1 cause of anxiety and depression. People worldwide from all walks of life are suffering the psychological effects of isolation, and working moms are not an exception. They experienced a unique pressure...
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There's a New Pregnancy Discrimination Bill in the House. This Time It Might Pass. [nytimes.com]
By Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Alexandra E. Petri, The New York Times, March 4, 2021 Congress is considering a new bill that could provide women across the country who face pregnancy discrimination a clear channel for recourse. It took only eight years, six legislative sessions and thousands of lawsuits — including one that made it to the Supreme Court — to get to this point. And now it might finally pass. The new bill , known as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, or PWFA, was first...
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There's a New Pregnancy Discrimination Bill in the House. This Time It Might Pass. [nytimes.com]
By Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Alexandra E. Petri, The New York Times, March 4, 2021 Congress is considering a new bill that could provide women across the country who face pregnancy discrimination a clear channel for recourse. It took only eight years, six legislative sessions and thousands of lawsuits — including one that made it to the Supreme Court — to get to this point. And now it might finally pass. The new bill , known as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, or PWFA, was first...
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'Living Paycheck to Paycheck, Living Diaper to Diaper' [nytimes.com]
By Jessica Grose, The New York Times, March 17, 2021 If your child is not potty trained, how many diapers do you have on hand right now? That’s a question I certainly wouldn’t have been able to answer with any specificity when my children were babies. But it’s a question that parents who struggle to afford the expense — about $70-$80 per month, per baby — can answer easily, because managing diaper need is among their most significant anxieties. That’s what a new study from Jennifer Randles,...
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Disability and Pregnancy: Research from NIDILRR and NICHD [acl.gov]
From Administration for Community Living and Department of Health and Human Services, March 2021 Persistent maternal health disparities related to race, ethnicity, and income have garnered recent national policy attention. A growing body of research examining women with disabilities' experiences with reproductive health reveals that disparities also exist between women with and without disabilities. The purpose of this brief is to summarize findings about reproductive education, experiences,...
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A San Francisco Experiment Will Give Some Pregnant Women $1,000 a Month. Could Other Cities Be Next? [time.com]
By Abigail Abrams and Abby Vesoulis, Time, March 18, 2021 When Maile Chand reminisces about her 2016 pregnancy, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t how she prepared her daughter’s nursery or vetted baby names. Instead, she remembers constantly struggling to find enough money for food and rent in San Francisco. Chand was just 20 years old at the time, living in the nation’s most expensive city, and working a low-paying retail job while attending community college. Navigating San...
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Jamaa Birth Village & Generate Health Awarded $1 Million to Help Make St. Louis a Safer Childbirth City [stlouis-mo.gov]
From St. Louis Department of Health, March 10, 2021 Thanks to a $1 million grant from Merck for Mothers and the Yellow Chair Foundation, St. Louis has become one of nine Safer Childbirth Cities. The award was granted to Generate Health and Jamaa Birth Village to support the STL 360 Doulas Initiative, a new collaborative to expand access to doula care. The new initiative is a partnership between Jamaa Birth Village, Generate Health, STL Doulas of Color Collective and Jesse Davis, MD, MBA,...
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How we handle stress at 45 linked to prenatal exposure [news.harvard.edu]
From Massachusetts General Hospital News and Public Affairs, April 5, 2021 Men and women whose mothers experienced stressful events during pregnancy regulate stress differently in the brain 45 years later, results of a long-term study demonstrate. In a unique sample of 40 men and 40 women followed from the womb into their mid-forties, the brain imaging study showed that exposure during fetal development to inflammation-promoting natural substances called cytokines, produced by mothers under...
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More Black Women Using Doulas to Avoid Maternal Mortality in Hospitals [blackenterprise.com]
By Jeroslyn Johnson, Black Enterprise, April 21 2021 With Black women more likely to die while giving birth in a hospital than women of other races, studies show more Black women have resorted to using doulas to aid in delivering their babies. In an effort to raise awareness on Black maternal mortality rates, President Biden proclaimed the week of April 11 through 17 as “Black Maternal Health Week,” 11 Alive reported. “In the United States of America, a person’s race should never determine...
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Blog Post
To solve the Black maternal mortality crisis, start with upending racist practices
It’s been all over the news for months: Black women in the United States are dying from complications during their pregnancies or in childbirth at alarming rates, and those deaths are preventable. Less well explored is how systemic racism and historical trauma have been at the core of what’s driven up these rates over several decades. A March 20 conference entitled The Impact of ACEs on Black Maternal Health took an in-depth look into why Black maternal mortality and complications during...
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Maternal Health in Black and White [chcf.org]
By Heather Tirado Gilligan, California Health Care Foundation, April 26, 2021 Despite an induced labor necessitated by the potential danger of preeclampsia, Morine Cebert Gators had a beautiful birth experience. Cebert Gators, who is Black, searched diligently for a Black ob/gyn provider when she moved from North Carolina to Knoxville, Tennessee. She was mid-pregnancy, had recently finished her PhD in nursing, and was having no luck finding a doctor who looked like her. Googling and joining...
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Pamela Burrus
Blog Post
Maternal Health’s Ongoing Mandate for Women of Color: The Call for Wholistic Health Equity
Last month’s CDC declaration that Racism is a public health crisis was long overdue. Yet, vital health and mental health disparities for women of color rage on amid this latest societal call to arms. Too many women of color, their families, and friends lay victim to gaping wounds, residual scars, and profound trauma from egregious maternal health experiences. Current facts speak volumes. The U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality among developed nations, rising steadily the past 40...
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NIHCM Newsletter on Maternal Health and COVID-19
The National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Newsletter highlighted how COVID-19 has affected maternal health: Maternal Health and COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating concerns about maternal health in the United States, which has the highest maternal mortality rate of industrialized countries and is the only nation where the rate is rising . New studies highlight the pandemic’s impact on the physical and mental health of pregnant individuals. Black Maternal Mortality...
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Pregnant Workers Fairness [abetterbalance.org]
From A Better Balance, May 2021 Every pregnant worker deserves the opportunity to work to support her family without risking the health of her pregnancy. Yet pregnant workers, especially those in low-wage and physically demanding jobs, are routinely forced to choose between their health and a paycheck. We have helped pregnant women secure and enforce a clear right to reasonable workplace accommodations–the same right afforded to workers with disabilities under federal law. We are pushing to...
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10 articles to mark National Women's Health Week [healio.com]
By Healio Primary Care, Healio News, May 13, 2021 National Women’s Health Week is observed each year, starting on Mother’s Day, to encourage women and girls to take care of their physical and mental health. The observance, which runs from May 9 through May 15 this year, is led by the HHS’ Office on Women’s Health. The CDC and HHS shared steps that women and girls can take to improve their health, including: attending regular health screenings and exams; exercising and maintaining a balanced...
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Adverse Babyhood Experiences (ABEs): 10 New Categories of Adversity Before a Child's 3rd Birthday (Download Journal Article)
Adverse babyhood experiences (ABEs) are a new construct derived from large bodies of evidence that identify a different group of risk factors from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). ABEs occur before a child’s 3rd birthday and influence infant as well as maternal morbidity and mortality. ABEs are also risk factors for chronic illnesses and other chronic conditions in the child , symptoms such as postpartum depression and PTSD in parents and offer opportunities for prevention and repair.
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Mothers' depression impacts mother-infant relationships (sciencedaily.com)
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.