Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Massachusetts Removes Gestational Restrictions On Abortions
The 19th: Massachusetts Expands Abortion Law To Any Point During Pregnancy
Massachusetts eliminated its cutoff for when someone can get an abortion, making it the tenth state — along with Washington, D.C. — to allow the procedure at any point in pregnancy. (Luthra, 8/10)
Regarding AOC's decision to freeze her eggs —
Axios: 'Not Helpful': White House Winces Over Conservatives Bashing AOC For Egg Freezing
When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted a video Saturday giving herself a shot in preparation to freeze her eggs, she instantly injected issues of fertility, family and feminism into political discourse. And some of the online backlash from the conservative right is making Republicans, including some in the White House, a little nervous. (Caputo, 8/11)
The Hill: Katie Miller Praises AOC's Decision To Freeze Eggs
Conservative media personality Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, praised Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) decision to freeze her eggs.“If one woman wants to preserve her right to have children, which means more than having none—we should celebrate that. If she inspires other women to have babies, we should celebrate that,” Katie Miller said in a post Sunday on the social platform X. “More women should get married and have babies younger, but too many women buy into the feminist lie and spend their childbearing years climbing the career ladder,” she added. (Suter, 8/10)
Other reproductive and maternal health news —
NPR: Scarce Maternity Care Is Particularly Concerning For Black Mothers
Nadia Gramby cherishes quiet moments with her baby girl River Emmanuel, who's starting to talk. They exchange snuggles and baby coos each morning. "Did you sleep well last night?" Gramby asks her little girl, who has dark curls and a big smile. Besides being a mother of two and a wife, Gramby spends her days and many nights as a midwife caring for other moms and babies across Alabama where she lives and practices. (Wright, 8/11)
HealthDay: Working At Home Makes Breastfeeding Harder, Not Easier, Study Says
Mothers who worked from home had lower breastfeeding rates than those working outside the home, researchers reported recently in the Western Journal of Nursing Research. Surprisingly, stay-at-home moms reported the lowest rates of exclusive breastfeeding. Researchers attributed the lower breastfeeding rates to a lack of formal support for mothers at home. (Thompson, 8/10)
MedPage Today: Residential Context Matters In Ovarian Cancer Survival
Living in areas of greater social vulnerability was linked to worse overall survival among women with epithelial ovarian cancer, particularly Black women, a retrospective cohort study suggested. (Robertson, 8/10)
In news about men's health —
NPR: Testosterone Is Having A Moment. But Who Actually Needs It?
A few times, Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt suspected he might have low testosterone. But when he checked his numbers, he discovered they were entirely within a normal range. "Turns out it was more so my sleep and stress and everything else," says Brahmbhatt, a urologist at Orlando Health in Florida. (Stone, 8/9)
The New York Times: A.I. Offers Hope For Men With Infertility, Spotting ‘Hidden’ Sperm
The hardest part of Dr. Zev Williams’s job as a fertility physician is telling a man: “You’re not going to be a father.” Male infertility contributes to up to 40 percent of all infertility cases worldwide. While a typical semen sample contains hundreds of millions of sperm, men with azoospermia, which affects about 10 percent of all infertile men, have zero or very few sperm in a sample. (Zaleski, 8/11)
