Favorites from this week

The rhythm of the week takes hold, and what felt initially like unique circumstances becomes part of the milder ups and downs, jumbled into a day's work. It isn't until I enter into conversations with others whose lives do not revolve around women's healthcare that I realize the beauty, the forgotten necessity, of respectful attention to the smallest details of people's lives. And how just the mention of being a midwife opens people's minds to what that could mean. Midwife: a word of opportunity for options, for choice, for respectful care. Thank goodness....The Lead Vaccine Developer Comes Clean So She Can "Sleep At Night": Gardasil and Cervarix Don't Work, Are Dangerous, And Weren't Tested - Sarah Cain at The Liberty Beacon"...Dr. Harper explained in her presentation that the cervical cancer risk in the U.S. is already extremely low, and that vaccinations are unlikely to have any effect upon the rate of cervical cancer in the United States.  In fact, 70% of all H.P.V. infections resolve themselves without treatment in a year, and the number rises to well over 90% in two years.  Harper also mentioned the safety angle.  All trials of the vaccines were done on children aged 15 and above, despite them currently being marketed for 9-year-olds.So far, 15,037 girls have reported adverse side effects from Gardasil alone to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (V.A.E.R.S.), and this number only reflects parents who underwent the hurdles required for reporting adverse reactions.  At the time of writing, 44 girls are officially known to have died from these vaccines.  The reported side effects include Guillian Barré Syndrome (paralysis lasting for years, or permanently — sometimes eventually causing suffocation), lupus, seizures, blood clots, and brain inflammation.  Parents are usually not made aware of these risks..."...What Makes A Baby - Cory Silverberg on Vimeo ...What Happens to Women Who Are Denied Abortions? - Joshua Lang at The New York Times"...“It’s not that the study was so hard to do,” Foster says. But no one had done it before. Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the debate over abortion has focused primarily on the ramifications of having one. The abortion rights community maintains that abortion is safe, both physically and psychologically — a position most scientists endorse. Those on the anti-abortion side argue that abortion is immoral, can cause a fetus pain and leads to long-lasting negative physical and psychological effects in the women who have the procedure. There is no credible research to support a “post-abortion syndrome,” as a report published by the American Psychological Association in 2008 made clear. Yet the notion has influenced restrictive laws in many states. In Alabama, women who seek an abortion must have an ultrasound and be offered the option to view the image; in South Dakota, women must wait at least 72 hours after a consultation with a doctor before having the procedure. “The unstated assumption of most new abortion restrictions — mandatory ultrasound viewing, waiting periods, mandated state ‘information,’ ” Foster says, “is that women don’t know what they are doing when they try to terminate a pregnancy. Or they can’t make a decision they won’t regret.” Lost in the controversy, however, is the flip side of the question. What, Foster wondered, could the women who did not have the abortions they sought tell us about the women who did?

Most studies on the effects of abortion compare women who have abortions with those who choose to carry their pregnancies to term. It is like comparing people who are divorced with people who stay married, instead of people who get the divorce they want with the people who don’t. Foster saw this as a fundamental flaw. By choosing the right comparison groups — women who obtain abortions just before the gestational deadline versus women who miss that deadline and are turned away — Foster hoped to paint a more accurate picture. Do the physical, psychological and socioeconomic outcomes for these two groups of women differ? Which is safer for them, abortion or childbirth? Which causes more depression and anxiety? “I tried to measure all the ways in which I thought having a baby might make you worse off,” Foster says, “and the ways in which having a baby might make you better off, and the same with having an abortion.”..."

...Should Nurse Practitioners Be Able To Treat Patients Without Physician Oversight? - The Wall Street Journal"...About a third of all states already allow nurse practitioners to practice without the supervision of a physician. But nursing groups and other health-care interests are lobbying for laws that would allow nurse practitioners the same degree of autonomy in additional states.Other groups praise the professionalism of nurse practitioners but argue that instead of granting them more autonomy, the industry needs to focus more on teamwork in the delivery of health care, emphasizing the strengths of nurse practitioners and physicians.Arguing for the right of nurse practitioners to do their work without a physician's supervision is Angela Golden, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University. She owns her own family primary-care practice in rural Arizona.Opposing efforts to expand the independence of nurse practitioners is Reid Blackwelder, president-elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians..."...Teaming Up with Our Nurse-Midwife Friends - Jeanne A. Conry at ACOGpresident.org"...Earlier this month, I had the good fortune to attend the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM) annual meeting in Nashville, TN. What a fabulous meeting in a great location. The meeting program was diverse and holistic, with an emphasis on the same issues ob-gyns are struggling with: improving safety in our birthing centers, improving global women’s health, and changing the delivery of care right here at home so that we see healthier moms and babies.An ACOG delegation—including myself, Executive Vice President Dr. Hal Lawrence, Past President Dr. Richard Waldman, and President Elect Dr. John Jennings—attended the opening ceremonies and were greeted with a thunder of applause, an acknowledgment that collaboration in improving women’s health and access to care is a shared goal of our organizations. ACNM also gave ACOG a very special award: the Organizational Partner Award for aiding in the development and practice of midwifery. This award was very meaningful to us. It was recognition that ob-gyns and nurse-midwives do collaborate, share delivery services, and very much depend on one another. The changing face of health care ensures that our professions will continue to interact, innovate, and work together..."...Physicians Urge Lawmakers To Stop Interfering With Women's Health Care - CQ HealthBeat via National Partnership for Women & Families"...The statement specifically denounces several types of laws, including those that tell physicians what to say to women about breast cancer risk and breast density, those that mandate outdated abortion treatment protocols, and those that require women to undergo ultrasounds and view the images before having an abortion.ACOG in the statement acknowledges that laws can promote public health and help provide for medical services, but it cautions that "laws that veer from these functions and unduly interfere with patient-physician relationships are not appropriate."..."...What Is Pitocin? - Birth Boot Camp