Latest news with #maternalhealth
Forbes
21 hours ago
- Health
- Forbes
A New Documentary Reveals Why America May Need A Birthing Revolution
A movement may be underway that offers a path toward a birthing revolution that works from within ... More the current healthcare system. If the U.S. spends more money on maternal healthcare than most other high-income nations, why does it also have the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality comparatively? More than 80% of maternal deaths in the country are likely preventable, according to the CDC. Racial disparities persist, with Black women being two to three times more likely than white women to die during childbirth. Roughly one in three births in the U.S. are C-sections, yet the World Health Organization deems the ideal rate to be between 10 and 15 percent. While the challenges are multifaceted and there is no single solution, the statistics indicate that America is in need of a birthing revolution. A movement may be underway that offers a path toward a birthing revolution that works from within the current healthcare system. It's being illuminated in a paradigm-shifting documentary called Fear and Now that premiers in June 2025 at Dances With Films festival in Los Angeles. Liat Ron during her second pregnancy reading about the method of hypnobirthing. It begins with film director Liat Ron sharing her unacknowledged traumatic first birth experience. 'It was a cascade of interventions and forced protocols; I had no control over what was happening to me,' says Ron in the film. The documentary also describes her mission to overcome her extreme fear of birth for her second pregnancy. This mission led Ron to discover the transformative power of hypnobirthing, which gives women a myriad of tools including breathing, relaxation, and visualization techniques, and accounts for both the physical and psychological well-being of the mother. The method reduces and even eliminates the fear-tension-pain cycle to help create a more gentle, enjoyable birth process. Director Liat Ron while filming "Fear and Now." The profound impact this particular method had on Ron to release fear and trauma and enable her second birthing experience to be enjoyable sparked her to embark upon a journey across the country to document the stories of parents, medical professionals, and birth workers who are also using hypnobirthing to put women back at the center of their birthing experience. 'I led myself to the dream birth I didn't know was possible, and that we all deserve to have. It changed my life,' says Ron. 'I do believe it is the best kept secret in the birthing world, but it's about time we all know what hypnobirthing really is. It's time we all have access to this birthing choice, if we decide it is for us.' Teneha Smith, DNP, FNP-BC, RNFA, is a mother of three based in Orlando, Florida who shares her story in Fear and Now. I spoke to Smith who recounts how she had a near death experience during her first birth, and it took her 15 years before she could even consider becoming pregnant again. 'During my first [birthing experience], things happened so quickly out of my control,' says Smith. 'It's like I was standing beside myself watching all these things happen to me. It really traumatized me. I love my daughter and I was thankful for her, but after what I had gone through I told myself I would never do this again. I'm a type A personality. I like to be in control. I like to have things organized. And that experience completely broke me down.' Smith said her husband had been talking about wanting to have more children for years, and she kept avoiding it until she got to the point where she did not want to let her first birthing experience overcome her and keep her from having more children. However, since she'd had her first daughter she had gone into the medical field to become a nurse practitioner, and was required to be present for births during her ob-gyn rotations. 'It just made my fear of birthing worse because it is like all the drama that you see on television,' she says. 'I knew there had to be another method, because my mother had all three of her children naturally.' Smith came across the hypnobirthing method in her research, and at first was skeptical. 'It sounded mystical, like a spell was being cast or something,' she says. 'I did my research, and I found it wasn't Voodoo or something crazy, but it was really about the power of the mind.' Teneha Smith shares her birthing story with Liat Ron while filming for the "Fear and Now" ... More documentary. Smith says she appreciated how hypnobirthing also educates about the physical aspects of giving birth, such as how the uterus works and the way endorphins are released. But the focus is on how your mindset controls your body. 'The mind is powerful,' says Smith. 'Think about the placebo effect and how a patient who believes a pill will make them better often does in fact feel better while taking the placebo just from the power of the mind. So I embraced that.' Smith went to the hypnobirthing class two times before she was even pregnant just to get her mind right, and then took the classes a third time once she became pregnant. She credits hypnobirthing with enabling her to have her next two births without an epidural or pain medication and to feel more in control of her birthing experience. 'Hypnobirthing teaches you to go within yourself, and to find your strength, whatever it is,' says Smith. 'For me, it was my faith in God. For other people it might be something else. But that's how I honestly overcame my fear of birth. And my support system.' Some research shows that pregnant people who learn hypnobirthing techniques are less likely to need medical interventions such as C-sections, and their delivery periods are shorter. Other research finds links between hypnobirthing and reduced labor pain and lower rates of postpartum depression. Delisa Skeete Henry, M.D., a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist of more than 20 years and owner of Serene Health OB-GYN & Wellness in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who is also featured in Fear and Now, says she discovered hypnobirthing from a patient during her early years in private practice. Though it was the first time she heard of the method, she did her research and supported her patient's choice to leverage hypnobirthing, along with having a doula, for an unmedicated birth. Since that experience, Dr. Skeete Henry, who does only hospital deliveries except during COVID, has continued to support women who want to use hypnobirthing, as well as other support strategies such as working with a doula and writing a birth plan. She says her practice's goal is to take a more holistic approach to prepare and educate women about what birth is, versus simply measuring the belly and listening to the baby. "Fear and Now" director Liat Ron filming during COVID with Dr. Skeete Henry and her team at Serene ... More Health OB-GYN & Wellness. 'I've seen through hypnobirthing when women are able to accomplish—either intentionally or unintentionally—that euphoria, that joy, that burst of hormones,' says Dr. Skeete Henry. 'It empowers them. I think that an empowered mom who has been able to achieve something so amazing is going to be a better mom, a better partner, just a better person in society. Even if you're planning medication, planning for an epidural, or have to do a C-section, the hypnobirthing philosophy and education in my mind makes the whole process so much easier.' It's important to note that interventions such as C-sections and inductions aren't always unnecessary and they can create positive outcomes and save lives. However, research finds that fewer interventions are needed when women have more autonomy in their birthing experience, such as by feeling they're able to make choices that are best for them in collaboration with their care providers, practice pain and anxiety management methods such as hypnobirthing, and have labor support such as a doula. 'We absolutely need medical professionals, but when it comes to certain things such as giving birth, you'll get a better experience and outcome if you collaborate with your doctor versus giving them full power and full authority over your birth story,' says Kymaletha Brown, LPC, MA, a mother of two based in Detroit, and a clinical mental health counselor, doula, and hypnobirthing educator. 'You know what's going on in your body. You're the one who's experiencing it. So it's important to get in tune with what you're experiencing, and take that power and align yourself mentally and physically. This will help you be more likely to have a safe, comfortable, and informed birth.' One of a myriad of reasons birthing women in America may experience higher intervention rates, such as inductions and C-sections, is that doctors may feel more in control of the outcome or perceive lower risks by performing an intervention. Dr. Lorne Campbell, M.D., who practiced family medicine in Johnson City, New York tells Ron in Fear and Now that doctors have developed a culture of fear of birthing, because we live in a litigious society and they're afraid of lawsuits. He also shares in the film how hypnobirthing changes the paradigm because the doctor's role becomes more of a support person rather than the driver. 'It's a completely mind-altering experience to be there with a woman and realize that if I put her in control, I get better outcomes than if I do it myself.' The beauty of hypnobirthing is that it is a method that all birthing people can use, regardless of whether a woman is having a home or hospital birth, a medication-free birth or an epidural. 'The goal of hypnobirthing is not to grunt or power through labor so you can say, 'I did it without an epidural.' The idea is to labor with the least amount of intervention so that mom and baby are safe, and it's as pleasant an experience as possible,' says Smith. Hypnobirthing teaches people mindset techniques, but it's also a holistic method that addresses everything from nutrition to having the right support system. 'It takes everything in you to give birth,' says Smith. 'You're in a vulnerable position. If you're not surrounded with the correct team that shares the same understanding and belief system that you do, you will bend to what others tell you to do no matter how strong you are.' Smith says using hypnobirthing for her second and third deliveries helped her move from labor being traumatic to being a very empowering experience. 'It wouldn't have happened that way if my husband wasn't on board, or if my doula wasn't on board, and if I had not spoken to my midwife and let her know this is the way I wanted things to go,' Smith says. A challenge is that in American medical culture rather than viewing birth as a natural process to stay out of unless there's a need for an intervention, it's viewed as a medicalized process. Fear and Now reveals how hypnobirthing is one method that can take something that's medicalized and scary, and turn it into an empowering experience. 'It can turn labor into something that you can look back on with pleasure and share it with your children versus it being like every other birth horror story that we always hear about,' says Smith. 'I really want birthing to be a positive, life-changing experience for women, and not what it has become in America today.' While Fear and Now focuses specifically on hypnobirthing as a cornerstone of the maternal healthcare revolution, the heart of the documentary's message is about women being in the driver's seat of their birthing experience. If women are able to experience birthing from a place of empowerment rather than a place of fear, it could have a ripple effect of impacting how they show up across other areas of their life—and be a gift they give to the next generation. It's about tapping into inner strength, resilience, and ultimately, joy. 'I hope the film brings to light that there are options for birth,' says Dr. Skeete Henry. 'I hope more women are able to at least explore hypnobirthing, and I hope more women are empowered to speak up for themselves."
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Health
- Fast Company
Maternal mental health needs more peer-reviewed research—not RFK's journal ban
This week, JAMA Internal Medicine published the results of a large new study that tracked mothers' health from 2016 to 2023. It found that maternal mental health declined significantly over the past seven years. The crisis we regularly write about in Two Truths, my best-selling Substack on women's and maternal health, is now being reported in one of the world's most respected medical journals. Which journals matter I read the story with interest—not just because I write about women's health for a living, but because I still pay a little bit more attention when I see 'JAMA' in a headline. When I started my career as a health journalist at Men's Health magazine in 2011, we were quickly taught which medical journals mattered most. The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The Lancet. JAMA. These were the powerhouses. When research appeared in one of them, it carried weight. It still does. The maternal mental health study published this week found, among other things, that in 2016, 1 in 20 mothers rated their mental health as 'poor' or 'fair.' In 2023, that figure rose to 1 in 12. The research underscored the need for immediate and robust interventions in mothers' mental health. Not a niche issue The study wasn't perfect; it was cross-sectional (meaning it examined women at different points versus following them over time) and it relied on self-reported health—a far from flawless strategy. Still, its presence in JAMA Internal Medicine signals what I know and what you know to be true: Maternal mental health is not a niche issue. It's national. Urgent. Undeniable. As my friend and trusted source Dr. Catherine Birndorf, cofounder of the Motherhood Center, told The New York Times, 'We all got much more isolated during COVID. I think coming out of it, people are still trying to figure out, Where are my supports?' The sad truth is that they're still missing; we're actively fighting for them over at Chamber of Mothers. 'Corrupt vessels' But here's the thing that really caught my attention in all of this: Earlier this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested potentially banning federal scientists from publishing in leading medical journals, calling The NEJM, The Lancet, and JAMA 'corrupt vessels' of Big Pharma. He proposed creating government-run journals—ones that would 'anoint' scientists with funding from the National Institutes of Health. It's true: Leading medical journals do accept advertising and publish industry-funded studies. There is also a long history of criticism surrounding the influence of pharmaceutical companies in academic publishing. Kennedy's concerns are not new. What's also true is that these journals disclose their funding, have rigorous peer-review processes (where independent experts, usually leaders in a field, assess the research and flag concerns), and have low acceptance rates. They publish research that changes the way medicine is practiced globally, informs policy decisions, and protects patients, particularly women and mothers. (The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations on breast cancer screening, which many clinicians follow, have been published and updated in JAMA; The Lancet regularly highlights maternal mortality disparities; The NEJM has published large-scale trials on critical women's health issues, from cardiovascular disease to hormone replacement therapy.) Program terminated And here's something else you need to know: Last week, I interviewed a leading physician and expert on gestational diabetes at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She shared a statistic that surprised me (sometimes hard to do when I've been reporting on health for 15 years): Up to one-half of women who have gestational diabetes in pregnancy go on to develop type 2 diabetes within 5 to 10 years of giving birth. The landmark study that laid the groundwork for understanding diabetes prevention in high-risk groups, including women with a history of gestational diabetes? It was called the Diabetes Prevention Program, and it was first published in The NEJM in 2002. Recently, under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s leadership—an administration that claims to be committed to 'ending chronic illness'—that program was terminated. Holding institutions accountable I'm not a doctor, scientist, or researcher. I'm trained as a health reporter. And I trust that training—just as I trust the countless physicians and researchers I've interviewed over the years, many of whom have spent their careers trying to get their work published in the most rigorous medical journals out there. As a journalist, I believe in holding institutions, including medical journals, accountable—especially when it comes to conflicts of interest. That's part of the job. But this administration has attempted to infuse a tremendous amount of chaos and confusion into a whole host of topics, health included. Health is nuanced. So is science. But let's be clear: Suggesting that medical research be limited, controlled, or replaced by 'in-house' publications is dangerous. Defunding evidence-based programs that serve high-risk groups, including mothers, is backward. Supporting high-quality, peer-reviewed research should be the bare minimum for anyone who cares about women's health. Canary in a coal mine In their report, the authors of the new JAMA Internal Medicine study wrote, 'Our findings are supportive of the claim made by some scholars that maternal mortality may be a canary in the coal mine for women's health more broadly.' It's a statement that places maternal health where it belongs: at the center of women's health. As Dr. Tamar Gur, director of the Soter Women's Health Research Program at Ohio State, told The New York Times, 'Now I have something I can point to when I'm seeing a patient and say, 'You're not alone in this.' This is happening nationally, and it's a real problem.' That's the power of credible, peer-reviewed research. That's where real change starts.
CBS News
5 days ago
- General
- CBS News
Moms in the U.S. report large decline in mental health in recent years, study finds
How to check in on your mental health How to check in on your mental health Only about a fourth of moms in the United States say they have "excellent" physical and mental health, according to a new study. The study, published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine, looked at 198, 417 mothers with children age 17 and under, finding large declines in self-reported maternal mental health and small declines in physical health from 2016 to 2023. The health outcomes were measured on a four-point scale, including excellent, very good, good and fair/poor. Within the time frame studied, the prevalence of "excellent" mental health declined from 38.4% to 25.8%. "Good" mental health rose from 18.8% to 26.1%, and "fair/poor" mental health rose from 5.5% to 8.5%. Prevalence of "excellent" physical health declined from 28.0% to 23.9%. "Good" physical health rose from 24.3% to 28.1% while "fair/poor" physical health didn't change significantly, the study found. "Mental health declines occurred across all socioeconomic subgroups; however, mental and physical health status was significantly lower for single female parents, those with lower educational attainment, and those with publicly insured children," the authors noted. The study also looked at changes among male parents, finding declines in both "excellent" physical and mental health within the same eight-year study period — but overall, they still had better health scores than their female counterparts. In 2023, for example, the prevalence of "fair/poor" mental health was 4 percentage points higher among female parents compared to male parents. This isn't the first time parental mental health has been put in the spotlight. Last year, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for changes to national attitudes toward parenting and caregiving in an advisory titled "Parents Under Pressure." "The work of parenting is essential not only for the health of children but also for the health of society. Additionally, we know that the well-being of parents and caregivers is directly linked to the well-being of their children," Murthy wrote in the advisory, highlighting his own experience raising children. As the study authors note, their findings are consistent with documented increases in depression and anxiety among pregnant and reproductive-aged women, as well as the general U.S. adult population. "Our findings are supportive of the claim made by some scholars that maternal mortality may be a canary in the coal mine for women's health more broadly," they wrote. Though more research is needed to identify the specific causes of declining mental health, the authors said leading theories include limited access to mental health care, social isolation, rising substance use disorders as well as broader stressors, from inflation and racism to gun violence and climate change.
Medscape
5 days ago
- Health
- Medscape
Prenatal Exposure, Maternal Factors Drive Childhood BMI
Maternal factors, including high maternal prepregnancy body mass index (BMI), high weight gain during pregnancy, and smoking, were associated with an atypically high BMI trajectory in children, based on data from nearly 9500 children. Childhood obesity remains a major risk factor for chronic health complications throughout life, and identifying modifiable early-life factors may help guide interventions and prevention, wrote Chang Liu, PhD, a psychologist at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, and colleagues. 'This study allowed us to identify children following unhealthy growth trajectories as early as age 3.5 years and identify the point where BMI starts to show rapid changes such as adiposity rebound, creating crucial opportunities for intervention before obesity becomes established,' Liu said in an interview. In a study published in JAMA Network Open , the researchers analyzed data from the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) cohort from January 1997 to June 2024. The final study population included 9483 children (approximately half were boys) from 23 longitudinal pediatric cohorts in the United States and Puerto Rico born between 1997 and 2019. The primary outcome was childhood BMI. The researchers categorized the children into two BMI trajectories, typical and atypical, using a novel model based on BMI shifts over time. Children with a typical trajectory (8477 children; 89.4%) showed linear BMI decreases to 6 years of age, followed by linear increases from age 6 to 9 years. Children with an atypical trajectory (10 children; 6%) showed early stable BMI from age 1 to 3.5 years, followed by rapid linear increases from 3.5 to 9 years. The researchers assessed prenatal exposures to smoking, alcohol, and stress (depression or anxiety) as well as maternal characteristics of prepregnancy BMI, gestational weight gain, and child characteristics of preterm birth, birth weight, and breastfeeding. The analysis used a multiphase latent growth mixture model to identify qualitative shifts in BMI during childhood that have not been addressed in previous studies, the researchers noted. At 9 years of age, the atypical group had a mean BMI of 26.2, higher than the 99th percentile. Prenatal smoking, high prepregnancy BMI, high gestational weight gain, and high birth weight were significantly associated with the atypical trajectory. The findings were limited by several factors, including the clinical utility of the researchers' multiphase model, which the researchers described as 'more computationally intensive than traditional methods of identifying abnormal childhood growth patterns.' Other limitations included the use of BMI values that may show variations in levels of adiposity based on age and sex, the lack of control for some social determinants of health, and incomplete data on BMI during school age and some perinatal exposures, the researchers wrote. Implications and Research Gaps Despite these limitations, the study identified factors that increase the risk for childhood obesity, and addressing these factors could help redirect unhealthy BMI trajectories, the researchers concluded. 'Without intervention, children exhibiting high BMI trajectories during childhood are more likely to develop overweight or obesity as adolescents and adults and are at higher risk for a range of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases throughout their lifetimes,' Liu told Medscape Medical News . Although examination of developmental pathways that lead to unhealthy vs healthy BMIs is crucial to identify modifiable early life factors, 'the challenge has been that most previous research couldn't pinpoint exactly when children's growth patterns start going off track,' Liu said. Opportunities for clinicians include helping women of reproductive age achieve healthy weight and smoking cessation before pregnancy, supporting appropriate gestational weight gain during pregnancy, and closely monitoring children who show early signs of non-declining BMI patterns, especially those with identified risk factors, Liu said. Further studies are needed to examine the biological mechanisms linking these early-life factors to different childhood BMI trajectories, Liu told Medscape Medical News . 'Additionally, research is needed to understand how social and environmental factors contribute to the racial and ethnic disparities we observed in growth patterns,' she said. 'Future work should test whether interventions targeting these modifiable factors during critical developmental periods can successfully help children maintain healthier growth trajectories,' Liu added. Expanding Awareness of Obesity Risk Early identification of risk for pediatric obesity can be crucial to minimizing disease morbidity and mortality, said Charles Hannum, MD, a general pediatrician at Tufts Medical Center, Boston, in an interview. The current study not only confirms previously known risks but also adds new information to help pediatricians identify young children who would benefit from a more nuanced approach to growth monitoring and who may also benefit from a more robust prevention strategy for obesity, he said. The data also show how maternal factors and the pregnancy environment influence child health, said Hannum. 'Lastly, this study is from a large, diverse population group, making the study conclusions more generalizable to the population of the United States,' he said. Although some of the study findings were known, such as the association between childhood obesity and prenatal smoking, the current study adds the dimension of how that risk connects to the child's growth trend over time, said Hannum. 'The growth trend is often how pediatricians monitor this risk anecdotally,' he said. The associations between BMI trajectory and modifiable risks are not unexpected, but they help support the assumptions clinicians often make about obesity risk and can inform more focused and individually tailored prevention strategies, he noted. The data can help support both public health initiatives and clinical practice at the individual level, Hannum told Medscape Medical News . For pediatricians, the findings support starting obesity prevention strategies early and monitoring children who have an at-risk BMI trajectory more frequently, he noted. When children do not follow a trajectory of decreased BMI from early to late toddlerhood, even if a BMI is normal, 'we now have evidence that they have an increased risk for developing obesity, and this knowledge may help to prevent some cases of pediatric obesity,' Hannum said. Add More Variables in Further Research The current study's limitations include missing and incomplete data and possible challenges when applying the trajectories to broad, diverse populations, given the complex contributors to pediatric obesity, Hannum told Medscape Medical News . More clarity is also needed on when and how to prioritize prevention strategies in the setting of additional obesity risk factors, Hannum added.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
VSee Health Launches AI-Powered Telehealth to Reduce Maternal Deaths in Remote Philippines
SAN JOSE, Calif., May 16, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VSee Health, Inc. (Nasdaq: VSEE), a leader in digital health solutions, customized virtual health workflow integration, and real-time health data analytics, announces the launch of Project MAMA (Mom's AI for Maternity Aid), an innovative telehealth initiative to reduce high maternal mortality rates in rural, isolated Philippines communities of Zamboanga Sibugay. Working with maternal care physicians and specialists from Stanford University and Ateneo de Zamboanga University, VSee's technology bridges the gap in prenatal care access, enabling women in underserved areas to receive remote OB-GYN consultations via its comprehensive telehealth platform. The solution features AI chatbots responding in local languages, portable diagnostic devices (e.g. ultrasounds) and electronic health records (EHRs) — all operational within four days of deployment. "Project MAMA exemplifies our commitment to addressing global healthcare disparities through innovative technology," said Dr. Milton Chen, PhD, co-CEO of VSee Health. "This program demonstrates impact by delivering quality prenatal care to mothers who've previously never gotten an ultrasound or been seen by an OB-GYN. We also plan to explore more ways to leverage AI — analyzing patient data trends for early detection of maternal mortality risk." The pilot program represents VSee's broader vision of bringing accessible healthcare to underserved populations worldwide through adaptable, AI-enhanced telehealth solutions. Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Certain of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "believes," "expects, "intends," "plans," "estimates," "assumes," "may," "should," "will," "seeks," or other similar expressions. Such statements may include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the Company's ability to regain compliance with Nasdaq's listing rules within the required timeframe. These statements are based on current expectations on the date of this press release and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ significantly, including those risks set forth in the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other documents filed with the SEC. Copies of such filings are available on the SEC's website at The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as the result of new developments or otherwise. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. About VSee Health VSee Health (Nasdaq: VSEE) is a rapidly growing leader in AI-powered telehealth, redefining the $787 billion digital healthcare market with its modular, no-code/low-code platform. Trusted by 1,000+ clients, including NASA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, McKesson, DaVita, and the entire nation of Qatar, VSee Health provides foundational infrastructure for digital healthcare and delivers turnkey solutions to optimize healthcare operations while increasing billable patient visits and provider efficiency. Visit View source version on Contacts VSee HealthAnne Changmedia@ Investor Contact:Dave GentryRedChip Companies1-407-644-4256VSEE@ Sign in to access your portfolio
