Me and You and Everyone We Don’t Know: A Reflection on Discourse
(Trigger/content warning: religious upbringing, childhood trauma) The past week has provided the opportunity for a lot of unexpected self-reflection. While a guest at Feministe, I am navigating more exposure, and more feedback, than I’ve ever experienced. Most aspects of this have been wonderful and fun. Predictably, some parts have been harder to swallow. I had [...]
...read more“The Radical Doula Guide”: What You Need To Know About Pregnancy & Childbirth
Five years ago, I had no idea what a doula was. (Doula what? Doula who?) Then I saw the Ricki Lake documentary “The Business of Being Born” and was forever changed. I cried through most of it thinking about my cousin’s pregnancy and hospital childbirth via caesarian, and decided I wanted to learn more about doulas and even be one someday.
...read morePregnancy Blues: Why Aren’t We Talking About Pre-Natal Depression?
Feministe friend Jessica Grose has an important series up at Slate on prenatal depression, its pervasiveness, and the stigma still attached to it (Part 1 is here; you can click through at the bottom of the piece to read parts two and three). After detailing her own experiences with depression during her pregnancy, Grose looks at the utter dearth of conversation (and certainly empathy) for women who are pregnant and clinically depressed. She writes:
...read moreLatch On, NYC–OR ELSE (Updated 8/1)
Starting September 3, baby formula will be a controlled substance at some New York City hospitals. Under the health department’s voluntary Latch On NYC program, 27 hospitals are literally hiding the baby formula under lock and key, tucking it away in distant storerooms and locked dispensaries like legitimate medications that need to be tracked. [See update. -C] Nurses will be expected to document a medical reason for every bottle a newborn receives, and mothers will get a breastfeeding lecture every time they ask for a bottle of formula.
(Now with 100 percent more updates!)
...read moreEncouraging Delayed Sexual Activity Without Shaming
A few years back, the McGuinty Liberals in Ontario proposed a new sex ed curriculum for the province, one that would start in Grade One. Naturally, people lost their shit, because Grade One students couldn’t possibly be taught about … (whisper it with me now).. sex.. in a nuanced and age-appropriate manner. Around me I [...]
...read moreHome Birth: Popular but Dangerous
Michelle Goldberg has an important piece in the Daily Beast about home births, and how they’re rapidly gaining popularity without women knowing all the risks.
...read moreDrinking While Pregnant: Not The Worst Thing.
You can drink while pregnant and, as long as it’s done in moderation, everything is probably going to be ok. Or maybe it won’t be ok. Heavy drinking during pregnancy can cause serious health issues for the baby, and no one seems to know exactly how much is too much, so the current guideline is “don’t drink.” No drinking means no fetal alcohol effects. But it might also mean a miserable pregnant lady. And stress and miserableness can lead to a series of health issues as well, including miscarriage.
...read moreBreaking: Teens who get accurate information about sex make better decisions about sex
Teens getting all sexed up! Having babies! Getting TV shows! Day care in high schools! Babies right and left! Teen pregnancy is more rampant than ever, right? No?
...read moreProsecuting “Bad” Mothers
A must-read in this week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine about over-zealous Alabama prosecutors bringing charges against drug-addicted mothers. It’s a troubling and complex issue. Obviously no one thinks that using drugs during pregnancy is a good idea. Obviously it is a tragedy when a baby is stillborn, or born with drugs in its system. But many of these cases involve stillbirths which cannot be clearly tied to drug use — all the prosecutors know is that the pregnant woman used drugs (even one time) and the baby was stillborn, and so they assume (and argue, with little to no evidence) causation. And because most folks don’t understand just how complicated pregnancy actually is — and after the 80s “crack baby” hysteria, don’t understand that drug use during pregnancy actually doesn’t usually cause long-term problems in the child — people hear “drug-using mom” and “stillborn baby” and it’s easy to conclude that A led to B, even though that’s not actually how it works.
...read moreVolunteer Abortion Funds Ramp Up in New York, Nationally
By Mary Lou Greenberg, cross-posted from On The Issues Magazine. When two Barnard college students arrived to escort patients into a New York City abortion clinic one winter day in 2001, they had no idea their experience would affect the lives of over 700 women. And that number grows daily. As the students, Irene Xanthoudakis [...]
...read moreBecause those poor little men can’t be trusted to make their own decisions
I realize that Monday’s post about anti-woman bills was rather the downer. As an apology, today I thought it might be time to highlight some more… positive legislation.
...read more“I personally prefer the classic term ‘strumpet’.”
So Rush Limbaugh calls a Georgetown law student a slut and a prostitute for having the audacity to talk about birth control, and when pressed to respond Mitt Romney simply says, “It’s not the language I would have used.” Very cool. Very principled!
...read more
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