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WomensHealth
Opinion: Empowering Women -- A Path to Prosperity
By not in system - AOL NewsIn many ways 2010 was the year of women in American politics: Female candidates were among the most visible in the midterm congressional elections, and more women became governors than ever before. In our country, women have a prominent voice in the debates that matter: political, economic and social. But in much of the developing world the story is different, as a recent report funded by Britain's Department for International Development makes clear. In these countries, women often lack essential legal and social rights, such as the right to own land or access credit on the same terms as ...
European Court: Irish Abortion Ban Violates Women's Rights
By not in system - AOL NewsDUBLIN (Dec. 16) -- Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion violates the rights of pregnant women to receive proper medical care in life-threatening cases, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday in a judgment that harshly criticized Ireland's long inaction on the issue. The judgment from the Strasbourg, France-based court will put Ireland under pressure to draft a law extending limited abortion rights to women whose pregnancies represent a potentially fatal threat to their own health. Ireland has resisted taking that step despite a 1992 judgment from the Irish Supreme Court ...
The Birth Control Pill's 50th Anniversary, From Three Generations of Women
By Politics Daily Staff - Politics DailyFrances Tobin: Going On the Pill: An Empowering Moment for Young Women When I was 16 years old, I took the advice of my fifth-grade teacher -- whose sex education class taught me all I needed to know about my body, its power and the personal responsibility and authority I had over it -- and asked my doctor for my first prescription of birth control pills. Though I wasn't yet sexually active, the prescription was something I had planned, for quite some time, to discuss with my family doctor, who had been treating me for as long as I could remember. The Pill was -- and still is -- a symbol of ...
Best Age to Have a Baby: A) Before 26? B) After 26? C) Never?
By Sarah Wildman - Politics DailyWhat's a gal (who wants kids) to do? If we choose to have children when we're young, pregnancy, in this country, makes us poorer, less employable, and diminishes our lifetime earning potential. If we wait, as so many of us are wont to do, we're likelier to shell out big bucks for fertility interventions, or miss our window. If we're body conscious, we might as well not get pregnant at all, at least according to Jillian Michaels, celebrity trainer on the "Biggest Loser," who's gone on record with her own fear of what "doing that" (becoming pregnant) will do to her admirably taut body. She ...
Paying the Price for Maternity -- Till Health Reform Kicks In
By Sarah Wildman - Politics DailyMaybe, in four years or so, the e-mails will stop coming. Maybe, in four years, women will stop Googling "women + maternity + individual insurance" or "pregnancy + individual market" and then writing to me, telling their stories, plaintively asking for help finding health insurance that covers pregnancy and childbirth on the individual market. In 2014 insurance reform fully kicks in, and with it the maternity care loophole in the individual insurance market should close. Until then, I field the messages, commiserate, and see if I can connect these women to resources. I feel I owe it to ...
Breastfeeding Would Save $13 Billion, But at What Cost to Working Moms?
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyResearchers at Cambridge Health Alliance have a novel plan to save billions of dollars a year in health care costs: just increase the number of women who breastfeed. If 90 percent of new moms in America breastfed for six months, say researchers in this month's edition of the journal Pediatrics, over $13 billion would be saved each year in combined health care costs, including fewer infections and fewer doctors visits, and indirect expenses, like missed work. ...
Mammograms at 50 Instead of 40? New Guidelines Controversial
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyWhen should a woman get her first mammogram? The automatic answer for me and for most women I know has been as soon as she turns 40. But on Monday, the federal government released new guidelines pushing the recommended age from 40 to 50, citing a higher instance of false positives for women who get the breast exam between 40 and 49 and a lower overall risk of breast cancer -- one in 69 at age 40, compared to one in 42 at 50. The new guidelines also state breast self-examination should no longer be taught because it is ineffective in reducing the number of deaths from breast cancer. The ...
My Cancer Scare, Thanks to a Mammogram
By Andrea Stone - AOL NewsWASHINGTON (Nov. 17) -- Now they tell me. It took doctors and scientists on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force seven years to reverse their recommendation that women have mammograms every one or two years once they turn 40, saying the tests triggered too many false alarms. But I already knew that they can do more harm than good -- at least in my case. I am the woman they are talking about. I had just turned 40 when my doctor told me it was time to start the recommended routine of annual mammograms. Since insurance covered it, I dutifully made the appointment. It was late December, a ...
Woman's Health Horror: 'My Vagina Fell Out'
By Buck Wolf - AOL News(Nov. 6) -- Allison Henry isn't the first to suffer from a horrifying medical condition that few women talk about. But her case was particularly bad, and she's just one of the few brave souls willing to come forward so that others will have the courage to seek help. To put it bluntly, as Henry does: "My vagina fell out of my body." The 39-year-old school psychologist from Kenmore, Wash., suffered from a rare combination of disorders that began when she was pregnant with her son, Kirian, and she writes an amazing account of her bizarre medical condition on MomLogic.com. Allison Henry, ...
Next Frontier in Fertility: Womb Transplants
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyBonnie, in vitro fertilization isn't quite the last stand for women hoping for some help to conceive. Doctors in Britain have announced that they have figured out a process to transplant wombs that could result in healthy pregnancies -- and they estimate they could do their first successful transplant within two years. But, not everyone's excited about this development. "(Infertility) is not a fatal disease, and the suggestion that women could undergo major transplant surgery to fulfill their desire for a child may prompt unease," the BBC notes. Well, they've got that right. New fertility ...
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