femtech:brief #16: Maternal mortality, lactation, flash periods, and more.
👋🏽👋🏽 Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of femtech:brief. This edition is a bit different than the rest, as we take the chance to explore what’s new this week across a variety of topics and what has happened around the world in what respects to women’s health and well-being.
Maternal Mortality
Although we have made huge progress toward improving maternal health and reducing childbirth complications, there is still a long way to go.
BabyLiveAdvice, , has compiled interesting and worrying facts about these topics.
In the United States, there is a maternal health crisis. Between 1987 and 2018, the number of mortality among pregnant and delivering women more than doubled, ranging from 7.2 to 17.4 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Vice President Harris has issued a countrywide Call to Action to the public and private sectors to improve health outcomes for parents and infants in the United States.
Childbirth complications in the U.S. cost $32 billion a year. The most costly expenditures are $6.6 billion in lost productivity, $895 million in cesarean section deliveries, and $350 million in longer hospital stays.
A bit more about BabyLiveAdvice and what they offer:
Lactation Restoration
LactApp, the first app dedicated to breastfeeding and motherhood that solves your questions in a personalised way, tells us more about breast refusal and lactation restoration.
Breast refusal can cause premature weaning and for moms it can be experienced in a very distressing way. Many times, this situation is perceived as a rejection of her as a mother, so it is important to validate her feelings and not minimize the emotions she is feeling, find out what her wishes are in relation to breastfeeding and jointly search for possible causes of this rejection.
In the following infographic from LactApp, you can find resources for the infant, when the mother desires so, to return to the breast.
More about LactApp’s premium content (in Spanish)
Flash Periods and Perimenopause
Little is known about all the changes women experience before menopause, but thanks to HealthyWomen, we now have a very good source of information to read all about this topic.
This week we learn more about flash periods:
“A flash period is not a medical term,” said Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at Yale Medical School and member of HealthyWomen’s Women’s Health Advisory Council. However, she added, “a period out of the blue from nowhere is a very common thing.”
Any woman, at any point in her life, can have a period with no warning, even women with very regular monthly cycles. “Funky ovulation due to Covid or stress is very common,” Minkin said.
Women experiencing perimenopause, the years before menopause when periods become irregular and symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and insomnia abound, may think they’re done then suddenly have a period, then go months again with nothing.
Meditation
Baby2Body brings together experts in prenatal and postnatal health and wellness from around the world to create bespoke fitness programs, customizable nutrition guidance, and empowering wellbeing support during and after pregnancy.
This week they tell us more about new meditations focusing on improving sleep, breathing, immune system, and expressing gratitude.
We know that the practice of 'meditation' and breathing exercises can come off as slightly intimidating and it can feel like another thing that you just don't really have time for. And then you ask yourself: is it really going to benefit me anyway? The short answer is yes it really will benefit you and it's a lot easier to get into than you think, especially if you have the right person guiding you - enter Amrita!
You can learn more about these meditations here.
That’s all for this week, thank you for joining us!