1. HealthyWomen acknowledges Weight problems Care Week
Through the first week of March, often known as Weight problems Care Week, HealthyWomen senior coverage advisor Martha Nolan wrote an Op-Ed that was printed in The Hill. Within the piece, Nolan argued that the way in which weight problems care is presently offered is damaged, steeped in stigma and misconceptions that weight problems is just a perform of eating regimen and train decisions. In actual fact, she wrote, weight problems is the results of complicated components that trigger illness and are sometimes out of a person’s management. Nolan advocated for the passage of the Deal with and Cut back Weight problems Act, which might assist enhance entry to and affordability of remedies for weight problems.
2. Intercourse Issues! A HealthyWomen advisor addresses ladies’s well being improvements and intercourse variations in well being
Monica Mallampalli, Ph.D., HealthyWomen senior scientific advisor, was interviewed this month by the Migraine World Summit in regards to the limitations ladies face when searching for healthcare and the way ladies with migraine illness can tackle the limitations they face in accessing care. The dialogue additionally coated the state of migraine analysis and what sufferers can do to assist and additional such analysis. Mallampalli additionally spoke to the Vestibular Problems Affiliation by way of Fb Stay and the Migraine Science Collaborative by way of LinkedIn Stay about her paper on care gaps in vestibular migraine printed earlier this 12 months in Frontiers in Neurology.
Mallampalli additionally just lately moderated a discussion board on improvements in ladies’s well being referred to as “CEOs Focus on Improvements in Girls’s Well being That Deal with Main Unmet Wants,” hosted by the Medical Gadget Group Boston. On March 29, Mallampalli additionally offered on the Society for Toxicology assembly. Her discuss, “Intercourse Issues! Historical past, Coverage and Toxicological Implications of Intercourse Variations in Illness Outcomes,” targeted on the importance of intercourse and gender variations in well being and analysis and on how toxicologists can advance analysis by taking intercourse into consideration in designing their research.
3. Congress approves the 2022 price range with elevated funding for maternal psychological well being applications
This month, Congress handed the fiscal 12 months 2022 federal price range. The brand new price range contains $2.5 million further funds for maternal psychological well being applications, bringing the entire to $10.5 million. These funds will assist a devoted maternal psychological well being hotline to function 24/7 and can fund grants to states for his or her native applications. The federal price range additionally contains different funding to enhance maternal well being outcomes and to cut back disparities in maternal well being amongst underserved communities, resembling in rural communities.
4. President Biden proposes maternal well being investments in his 2023 price range request
In late March, President Biden launched his price range request for fiscal 12 months 2023. This proposed price range, which Congress nonetheless has to approve, is basically the White Home’s want record for the approaching 12 months’s spending priorities. Included within the administration proposal is a virtually 27% improve in funds for the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers. Particularly, the proposal contains $470 million to enhance maternal well being and cut back maternal deaths and $400 million to fund the Title X Household Planning program, which offers funding for reproductive look after low-income individuals. Different price range priorities for the Biden administration embody elevated funding for public well being infrastructure, free vaccines for uninsured individuals, telehealth, psychological well being care, most cancers analysis, and HIV therapy and prevention.
5. President Biden signed a bipartisan legislation reauthorizing the Violence In opposition to Girls Act
This month, President Joe Biden signed the Violence In opposition to Girls Act (VAWA) Reauthorization Act of 2022 to forestall and tackle gender-based violence, enhance entry to look after survivors of sexual violence, and enhance protections for Native American ladies. The reauthorization extends VAWA grant applications till 2027, will increase companies for survivors from marginalized communities, improves prevention and response to sexual violence, and strengthens the healthcare system’s response to home violence and sexual assault, amongst different essential provisions. The unique Violence In opposition to Girls Act was handed in 1994 and up to date in 2000, 2005 and 2013.
This new legislation takes impact in opposition to a backdrop of elevated accomplice violence in the USA. In line with a new examine, referrals for consultations for emotional abuse and different types of intimate accomplice violence elevated considerably in the course of the pandemic.
6. States are making it simpler to get contraception from pharmacists
Earlier this month, the Rhode Island Home of Representatives authorized a invoice permitting pharmacists to prescribe contraception with out authorization or a prescription from a medical skilled. The invoice is into consideration within the state Senate. Related measures have handed in a few dozen states, most just lately in North Carolina.
7. A examine sheds gentle on the connection between weight problems, infertility and delivery outcomes
Girls residing with weight problems who battle with infertility are sometimes suggested to drop pounds with a view to enhance their possibilities of getting pregnant. However a new examine printed this month confirmed that girls who dieted intensely and elevated their bodily exercise ranges had been no extra more likely to get pregnant or have wholesome births than ladies who elevated their bodily exercise however who didn’t eating regimen and drop pounds. The ladies who misplaced weight skilled different well being advantages — resembling decreases in metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of signs that improve danger of diabetes, stroke and coronary heart illness — however losing a few pounds didn’t improve fertility.
One other examine printed this month confirmed that girls residing with weight problems previous to being pregnant had been 55% extra more likely to ship a stillborn child or have a new child dying. Even ladies who had been reasonably chubby earlier than being pregnant had 22% greater odds of one in every of these damaging outcomes.
8. Extra proof emerges that Covid-19 is harmful for pregnant ladies
Extra proof of the hazards Covid-19 pose to pregnant ladies was printed this month. The new examine discovered that Covid-19 an infection throughout being pregnant doubles the chance of damaging penalties, in comparison with pregnant individuals with out Covid-19. Dangerous outcomes related to the virus included preterm delivery and maternal hospitalization. Pregnant individuals with diabetes and Asian or Pacific Islander and Black pregnant individuals had been extra doubtless than others to be hospitalized with Covid-19.
9. Mississippi lawmakers are attempting to revive efforts to broaden Medicaid protection for postpartum ladies
State Senators in Mississippi just lately authorized a invoice that may prolong Medicaid protection for postpartum ladies, from the present two months to at least one 12 months. The invoice died within the Mississippi Home of Representatives this month when it didn’t make it out of the Home Medicaid Committee for a full vote. The objection from the Committee chairman was reportedly concern for creating any look of Medicaid growth in Mississippi, one in every of 12 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid beneath the Reasonably priced Care Act. However now, the Republican-led State Senate is searching for to revive its proposal as a method of bettering Mississippi’s excessive maternal mortality price. An estimated 225,000 residents of Mississippi might achieve medical health insurance protection if the state opted to broaden Medicaid.
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