#pregnancy in america

[reasoningdaily]

The US infant mortality rate rose last year. The CDC says it’s the largest increase in two decades

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. infant mortality rate rose 3% last year — the largest increase in two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

White and Native American infants, infant boys and babies born at 37 weeks or earlier had significant death rate increases. The CDC’s report, published Wednesday, also noted larger increases for two of the leading causes of infant deaths — maternal complications and bacterial meningitis.

“It’s definitely concerning, given that it’s going in the opposite direction from what it has been,” said Marie Thoma, a University of Maryland researcher who studies maternal and infant mortality.

Dr. Eric Eichenwald, a Philadelphia-based neonatologist, called the new data “disturbing,” but said experts at this point can only speculate as to why a statistic that generally has been falling for decades rose sharply in 2022.

RSV and flu infections rebounded last fall after two years of pandemic precautions, filling pediatric emergency rooms across the country. “That could potentially account for some of it,” said Eichenwald, who chairs an American Academy of Pediatrics committee that writes guidelines for medical care of newborns.

Infant mortality is the measure of how many babies die before they reach their first birthday. Because the number of babies born in the U.S. varies from year to year, researchers instead calculate rates to better compare infant mortality over time. The U.S. infant mortality rate has been worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care and other possibilities. But even so, the U.S. rate generally gradually improved because of medical advances and public health efforts.

The national rate rose to 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2022, up from from 5.44 per 1,000 the year before, the new report said.

The increase may seem small, but it’s the first statistically significant jump in the rate since the increase between 2001 and 2002, said Danielle Ely, the CDC report’s lead author. She also said researchers could not establish whether the 2022 rise was a one-year statistical blip — or the beginning of a more lasting trend.

Overall in the U.S., the death rate fell 5% in 2022 — a general decrease that’s been attributed to the waning impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on people 65 and older. U.S. maternal deaths also fell last year.

More than 30 states saw at least slight rises in infant mortality rates in 2022, but four states had statistically significant increases — Georgia, Iowa, Missouri and Texas.

In numbers, U.S. infant deaths surpassed 20,500 in 2022 — 610 more than the year before nationwide. But Georgia had 116 more infant deaths than the year before, and Texas had 251 more.

“It would appear that some of the states could be having a larger impact on the (national) rate,” Ely said, adding that smaller increases elsewhere also have an effect — and that it’s hard to parse out exactly what places, policies or other factors are behind the national statistic.

[sugas6thtooth]

You don't have to be the person who feels like they can't help the situation in Gaza because they're thousands of miles away. There is plenty you can do!! SAVE THE ZAQOUTS!!!

[exxhaustedhope]

Telling women they’ll be prosecuted for having miscarriages is fear-mongering and lying. They aren’t going to be jailed for losing their babies.

If you choose to take every social media post and headline at face-value then you’re going to live a life full of fear and despair.

[tyrialsofficial]

Cw: Mpreg/Male Pregnancy

Recently somebody requested a drawing of Captain America

I had way to much fun working on this, but anyways....lol Here's the finished drawing :3

[creelarke]

anyway found this on tiktok so it’d be great if you could spread it around even if you don’t need it!! for women and trans men and anybody - especially those living in america - who can get pregnant

[prolifeproliberty]

Before we hit 4th of July...

Listen. I know our country is in shambles. Our culture has been torn apart. Our government is the enemy of the people. Our institutions are captured by ideologues. Our media and government have been lying to us since before any of us were born. The Constitution has been ripped to shreds. We have long since passed the point where others would have begun throwing tea in the harbor.

I am not proud of where our country is now. We are in decline. I fear for where we are headed.

Independence Day is not a celebration of our government or our leaders. It's also not a celebration of what our country is today. It's not even really a celebration of some long-gone glory days.

Independence Day is two things:

A reminder of what our country was intended to be, that we should not be complacent or satisfied with things as they are now.

A chance to be obnoxious and annoy non-Americans

So starting at about 11pm tonight I will continue my tradition of having scheduled posts publish every hour for the duration of Independence Day.

I don't want to hear all the edgy takes about how terrible our country is. I know. I'm aware. You're not being original. Being disillusioned doesn't make you cool. Just let me have this one day - and maybe let yourself have a little fun with being American.

[viixenvi]

𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐞?

Summary: You find out Steve has been cheating with other girls on his guy's night out. But you also just found out you are pregnant...

Characters: Steve Rogers, Fem!Reader, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff

Warnings: Cheater Steve, hurt, angst, mention of abortion, mention of infertility

Badly written and mistakes were def made but I hope u like it!

I looked over the picture again. Steve kissing some random blonde girl in the bar. The phone was clutched in the palm of my hand. It was not the right time to find this out.

I glanced at your other hand, a pregnancy test that read 'POSITIVE' in big letters. Tonight was going to be the night I told him. The test was from the day before, Steve was on assignment so it didn't feel right to throw the news at him right after a long mission.

No one else knew either, of course, they'd be happy but it felt wrong to share it with my friends before my boyfriend knew.

The elevator dinged, letting it be known someone was there. I quickly put the test away in my pocket and wiped the stray tears from my face.

"Y/n? you are up?" Natasha asked as she walked into the living room area. The rest of the boys were following behind her, all drunk or slightly drunk of course.

"I was waiting for Steve to come home," I give a half-hearted smile to her. She nods and sits next to meme.

Steve stumbles to the couch across from me and falls back onto it. "So how was boy's night out?" my phone is set face down on my thigh. Everyone looks a bit tense as they realize I saw the photo they sent.

"Good, had fun doing stuff," Steve sighs. I nod along and pick my phone up, turning it on and pressing the photo.

"I bet you had so much fun kissing that blonde huh?" I turn the phone towards him. His eyes widen at the sight of the photo. He immediately sits up.

"I can explain!" his voice was filled with panic. Like I had just uncovered something he'd been keeping from me forever. Tears starting to sting my eyes. I tried to keep them back but the hormones mixed with finding all this out got the better of me.

"Explain what? That you cheated on me? That all the trust I put into you was a lie? That this relationship meant nothing to you?" I ask him, the tears falling down my face. I wipe them away but they just continue.

Steve shakes his head and gets up. I stand up and try to walk away but he puts his hands on my shoulders and stops me from walking any further. "Please baby, please let me explain," he begs. It almost makes me rethink it all, just for a split second.

"Explain then."

"I was drunk, I had no idea what I was doing." He takes his hands off my shoulders and rubs his head.

"Drunk? that's your excuse? Steve that photo was taken right after you guys arrived at the bar. You probably only had two drinks in you," I yell. Everyone around us is shocked. I'm never one to yell, even when provoked.

I was angry, sad, hurt. I was feeling everything and I couldn't keep it in anymore. "Listen, I'll never do it again. Honey, please." Steve looks into my teary eyes and my heart finally breaks.

He's not the Steve I loved. He's not the one I trusted and shared my secrets with. "You know, I really loved you. It may have been just another relationship to you, but I wanted to marry you." I wipe my tears again and this time they don't return.

"We can still do that baby! You and me," He says, holding my hands in his.

"Tell me one thing, if you tell the truth I'll forgive you." He nods and looks at me expectantly. "Did you love me? Like actual love," I ask. He hesitates before speaking up.

"Yes. Of course, I loved you." I can tell he's lying. I always knew when he was lying and this hurt me even worse. I knew what the answer was but hearing it from him just hurt me in ways I could never explain in any words.

I pull away from him and reach into my pocket. I pull the pregnancy test out and hold it up.

"I was going to tell you tonight, I found out yesterday." Steve beams when it registers that I'm holding a pregnancy test.

"We are going to have a baby?" He asks excitedly.

"No, you have nothing. The moment you decided to cheat on me you lost the right to me and this baby," I start. "I struggled with fertility, I told you this. I confided in you about how I was ready to start a family because I trusted and loved you completely. When the doctor told me I might never be able to have a baby I confided in you. I cried on your shoulder and you promised we would get through it. I was so stupid to actually believe I'd finally get what I wanted."

Steve's smile drops and he looks confused. "What do you mean? Are you going to have an abortion?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet. All I do know is that I want nothing to do with you ever. We are done, consider me dead from now on." I throw the pregnancy test at him and walk to our shared room.

I hear footsteps following behind me. "Y/n?" A voice says. I turn to see Natasha looking at me with a concerned face. I finally let the tears go that I was holding in. She rushes to me and holds me close to her chest as we sit on the bed.

"I loved him, Nat, I loved him," I sob out. Natasha pets my hair and rocks us back and forth.

"I know hun, I know."

[amaranthmori]

[b1tstar]

IM GONNA SHIT WHAAAATTT

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Just a few years ago, maternal mortality was the rare reproductive justice issue that seemed to transcend partisan politics. In late 2018, Republicans and Democrats in Congress even came together to approve $60 million for state maternal mortality review committees (MMRCs) to study why so many American women die from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Donald Trump—not exactly famous for his respect toward pregnant women and new mothers in his personal life—signed the bill.

But some Republicans’ enthusiasm for these committees began to wane at around the same time abortion rights advocates began warning that draconian restrictions on reproductive care would only push the shamefully high US maternal mortality rate—the worst among affluent countries—even higher. Nor did conservatives, like Idaho lawmakers, appreciate the policy recommendations that came out of many MMRCs.

Texas, whose record on maternal mortality (and maternal health more broadly) has been an embarrassment since long before Dobbs, has a history of controversial attempts to play down potentially unwelcome findings from its MMRC. After the Dobbs decision, when the state committee was working on its report examining maternal deaths in 2019, Texas officials decided to slow-roll its release until mid-2023—too late for lawmakers to act on its recommendations. “When we bury data, we are dishonorably burying each and every woman that we lost,” one furious committee member told the Texas Tribune. Ultimately, officials released the report three months late, in December 2022. Soon afterward, the Legislature reconfigured the MMRC, increasing its size—but also ejected one of its most outspoken members.

Now Texas officials have stirred up the biggest furor yet, appointing a leading anti-abortion activist to the panel. Dr. Ingrid Skop, an OB-GYN who practiced in San Antonio for 25 years, will join the MMRC as a community member representing rural areas (even though she is from the seventh-largest city in the US). But she also represents a largely overlooked segment of the anti-abortion movement: researchers who seek to discredit the idea that abortion restrictions are putting women’s lives in danger. To the contrary, Skop and her allies argue that abortions are the real, hidden cause of many maternal deaths—and that abortion restrictions actually save mothers’ lives.

One of several doctors suing to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, the medication abortion drug at the center of one of this term’s blockbuster Supreme Court cases, Skop has been a familiar face on the anti-abortion expert-witness circuit for more than a decade. She has frequently testified in favor of strict abortion bans in court cases, state legislatures, and before Congress. In a high-profile case this winter, she submitted an affidavit stating that a Dallas woman named Kate Cox— who was seeking a judge’s permission to terminate a nonviable pregnancy—did not qualify for an abortion under Texas’s medical exception. The Texas Supreme Court rejected Cox’s petition, and to get medical care, the 31-year-old mother of two had to flee the state. Apparently, Skop’s hard-line stance against abortion-ban exemptions extends to children. At a 2021 congressional hearing, she testified that rape or incest victims as young as 9 or 10 could potentially carry pregnancies to term. “If she is developed enough to be menstruating and become pregnant, and reached sexual maturity,” Skop said, “she can safely give birth to a baby.”

Skop’s relatively new role as vice president and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, has solidified her standing in the anti-abortion firmament. Lozier, which has positioned itself as the anti-abortion alternative to the Guttmacher Institute, described Skop’s role as “coordinat[ing] the work of Lozier’s network of physicians and medical researchers who counter the abortion industry’s blizzard of misinformation with science and statistics for life.” Elsewhere on its website, Lozier notes that Skop’s “research on maternal mortality, abortion, and women’s health has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals.”

What her Lozier bio doesn’t mention is that three of the studies Skop co-authored about the purported risks of abortion were retracted by their publisher this February. Attorneys representing Skop and her fellow anti-abortion doctors had cited the studies in the FDA-mifepristone case. As my colleague Madison Pauly reported, an independent review of the papers found “fundamental problems,” “incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors,” “misleading presentations,” and undisclosed conflicts of interest between the studies’ authors (including Skop) and anti-abortion advocacy groups (including Lozier). In a rebuttal on its website, Lozier called the publisher’s move “meritless,” adding, “There is no legitimate reason for [the] retractions.”

Skop’s work on maternal mortality hasn’t received the same attention as those papers—yet. But her reflections on maternal deaths in the US have raised plenty of eyebrows.

Skop has argued repeatedly that abortions are directly and indirectly behind the rise in maternal mortality in the US. In a 53-page “Handbook of Maternal Mortality” she wrote for Lozier last year, she says that CDC maternal mortality data can’t be trusted in part because “there is much unreported maternal mortality and morbidity associated with legal, induced abortion, often obscured due to the political nature of the issue.” She claims that a history of abortions puts women at risk in pregnancy, childbirth, or during the postpartum period—whether from maternal complications she contends are linked to prior abortions, or from mental health problems, such as drug addiction and suicide, purportedly caused by abortion regret.

In another paper co-written with some of the same co-authors as in her retracted studies, Skop and her colleagues call for an overhaul of how states and the CDC collect maternal mortality data, urging the inclusion of “mandatory certification of all fetal losses,” including abortions.

And whereas the vast majority of public health experts predict that maternal deaths and near-deaths will increase in states with abortion bans, Skop takes the opposite view. In yet another Lozier paper, she lists 12 reasons why states with abortion bans will have fewer maternal deaths. For instance, she argues, because of abortion restrictions, women will have fewer later-term abortions, which tend to be more dangerous to women than first-trimester procedures. (In fact, researchers report, that state bans have led to an increase in second-trimester abortions.) She claims that since women who don’t have abortions won’t have mental health problems supposedly associated with pregnancy loss, their alleged risk of postpartum suicide would be reduced. (In fact, the idea that abortion regret is widespread and dangerous has been thoroughly debunked.) Skop makes a similar argument about abortion’s purported (and disproven) link to breast cancer, arguing that fewer abortions will mean fewer women dying of malignant tumors.

Much of Skop’s advocacy work has been done in collaboration with colleagues who share her strong ideological views. MMRCs, by contrast, have a public health role that is supposed to transcend politics—their focus is on analyzing the deaths of expectant and new mothers that occur within a year of the end of the pregnancy. Typically, committee members come from a wide range of professional backgrounds: In Texas, these include OB-GYNs, high-risk pregnancy specialists, nurses, mental health providers, public health researchers, and community advocates. Panels also aim to be racially and geographically diverse, the better to understand the communities—Black, Indigenous, rural, poor—where mothers are at disproportionate risk of dying. In a country that hasn’t prioritized maternal health, MMRCs are uniquely positioned to identify system failures and guide policy changes that can save lives.

Texas’s most recent maternal mortality report found that 90% of maternal deaths were preventable, racial disparities in maternal outcomes weren’t improving, and severe childbirth complications were up 23%—all before the state’s abortion bans took effect.

It remains to be seen how someone with Skop’s background and agenda will fit in with her new colleagues, especially at this dire moment for women in the state. Maternal health advocates aren’t optimistic: “This appointment speaks volumes about how seriously certain state leaders are taking the issue of maternal mortality,” Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, told The Guardian. “It is another sign that the state is more interested in furthering their anti-abortion agenda than protecting the lives of pregnant Texans.”

Skop, contacted through Lozier, didn’t respond to a request for comment. In a statement to the Texas Tribune, Skop said she was joining the Texas MMRC because questions about maternal mortality data deserve “rigorous discourse.” “There are complex reasons for these statistics, including chronic illnesses, poverty, and difficulty obtaining prenatal care, and I have long been motivated to identify ways women’s care can be improved,” she said. “For over 30 years, I have advocated for both of my patients, a pregnant woman and her unborn child, and excellent medicine shouldn’t require I pit one against the other.”

Meanwhile, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists criticized Skop’s appointment, asserting that members of any maternal mortality review committee should be “unbiased, free of conflicts of interest and focused on the appropriate standards of care.”

“The importance of the work done by MMRCs to inform how we respond to the maternal mortality crisis cannot be overstated,” the group said in a statement. “It is crucial that MMRC members be clinical experts whose work is informed by data, not ideology and bias.”

[high-quality-tiktoks]

Care about healthcare? You should care about whats happening in Idaho

[no-sorry]

"what if you were aborted" I WAS aborted! My mom had an abortion at 17 and then 3 years later I was born on the exact same day she had an abortion on. Told her I came back to haunt her lmao

[sugas6thtooth]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Hananoki at MMFA:

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, news outlets have published numerous stories documenting how restricted abortion access has medically harmed women across the U.S. In contrast, numerous groups involved with Project 2025, including lead organizer The Heritage Foundation, have falsely claimed over the years that abortions are never medically necessary.  The Associated Press reported that doctors have said “that there are many circumstances in which abortion — meaning the termination of a pregnancy — can be medically necessary,” and AFP wrote that “the scientific consensus” is “that abortion is sometimes medically necessary.” 

Since Dobbs, media outlets have also highlighted cases where state abortion bans have caused significant medical issues.  ABC News talked to “18 women from across 10 states who say their medical care was impacted by abortion bans -- bringing some of them to the brink of death.” ProPublica reported on how doctors “say they can’t give women potentially lifesaving care.” The Washington Post “found that many hospitals have failed to provide specific guidance or policies to help doctors navigate high-stakes decisions over how to interpret new abortion bans — leading to situations where patients are denied care until they are on the brink of permanent injury or death.” And the AP reported this week on how “abortion bans complicate risky pregnancy care.”  Media Matters has documented how Project 2025 seeks to significantly restrict reproductive rights in the country. Multiple Project 2025 partners have also continued to signal that they want to criminalize abortion.

Many groups that are in partnership with Project 2025, such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Family Research Council, American Family Association, and lead sponsor Heritage Foundation, have all pushed anti-abortion misinformation falsely claiming that abortions are never medically necessary.

[steveandnatlover76]

Yelena: Why the face?

Natasha doesn’t answer.

Yelena: Okay. Let me take a guess. Morning sickness?

Natasha: Um…

Yelena: Can’t make up your mind yet whether to throw up or not?

Natasha: Um…

Yelena: Okay. I guess I‘ll find out soon, whether I like it or not.

[jerzwriter]

Women should really consider not having children right now. Up to 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and that could be a death sentence in trump’s america.

Even if you’re in a “safe” state now, you may not be in the near future.

This leads me to another dark topic that must be thought about. Even if you’re not sexually active, get on birth control. Sexual assault rates are astronomical and they result in pregnancies, too.

You have to protect yourself.