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Daily Montanan

Abortion bans skirt a medical reality: For many teens, childbirth is a dangerous undertaking – Daily Montanan

As abortion bans take hold throughout some states, many are facing an old reality: Pregnancy is a dangerous thing for young teens.

Maryanna’s eyes widened as the waitress delivered dessert, a plate-sized chocolate chip cookie topped with hot fudge and ice cream. Sitting in a booth at a Cheddar’s in Little Rock, Maryanna, 16, wasn’t sure of the last time she’d been to a sit-down restaurant. With two children — a daughter she birthed at 14 and a 4-month-old son — and sharing rent with her mother and sister for a cramped apartment with a dwindling number of working lights, Maryanna rarely got out, let alone to devour a Cheddar’s Legendary Monster Cookie. On this muggy September evening, though, she was having dinner with her “sister friend” Zenobia Harris, who runs the Arkansas Birthing Project, an organization working to reduce the odds that Arkansas women and girls die from pregnancy and childbirth. In a highchair next to her, Maryanna’s daughter, Bry’anna, spiraled sideways and backward, her arms outstretched, flying. Her eyes would settle on her grilled cheese, and she’d swoop her small hand down to pick up the sandwich. Maryanna suffered mightily during Bry’anna’s birth. (Kaiser Health News is not using the family’s last name to protect Maryanna’s privacy.) She remembers telling her mother, “I don’t want to do none of this.” Nurses routinely checked to see how far she had dilated, a painful prodding of the cervix typically done before pain medications are administered. “Nobody talks about that. I would not open my legs wide enough for them,” she said, cringing at the memory. “There were seven nurses up in there, and I was like, ‘No! Why ya’ll doing this?’” Hours later, a doctor used vacuum suction to pull the baby through Maryanna’s 14-year-old vaginal canal, ripping apart the skin and muscle of her perineum. ... Infant mortality rates in Arkansas are highest for babies born to women younger than 20, and the large number of teen births fuels the state’s third-highest infant mortality rate in the country. Arkansas women have the highest rate of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S., according to CDC data, about double the national average. For young women who continue their pregnancies, the emotional and physical challenges can be daunting. The age at which girls in the U.S. begin menstruating has dropped in recent decades, in part due to widespread obesity, but the physiological changes necessary to birth and feed a newborn require additional years of development. “When she has her first menstruation, she is capable of becoming pregnant, but that doesn’t mean she is capable of having a child,” said Dr. Dilys Walker, director of global health research for the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California-San Francisco. Walker explained that during adolescent development, the beginning of menarche signals the start of a growth spurt that can take up to four years to complete. During that time, a girl’s uterus and bony structures, including her pelvis, remain narrow, developing slowly as she ages. It’s a precarious moment to give birth. It’s not uncommon for girls to face obstructed labor “because their pelvis is not developed enough to accommodate a vaginal delivery,” said Dr. Sarah Prager, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Going through with a vaginal birth could cause lasting damage to a teen’s pelvic area and rectum. So, teenage childbirth often ends in cesarean section, causing uterine scarring that almost guarantees she will need to give birth via cesarean section if she has more children. “Adolescents are at increased risk for low-birth-weight babies, high blood pressure in pregnancy, preeclampsia, higher complications from sexually transmitted diseases, and increased rate of infant death,” said Dr. Anne Waldrop, a maternal-fetal medicine fellow at Stanford University.

For everyone out there planning to vote for "prolife" politicians this November, just know that you are voting to hurt and possibly murder children.

Heard some important information on Twitter today, and thought I’d post it here for anyone who may not have heard it. This is actually a thing, devised by human rights organisation called Karma Nirvana.

Reblog to save a life?

pulling up a femme’s skirt and finding her already soaking wet for you rb if you agree

We need better sex ed because I didn’t know that periods that cause excruciating pain, among other things wasn’t normal. I didn’t learn about the many common problems people could encounter from menstruating from sex ed. I learned it from the internet.

- anonymous

menstruation is the only blood that is not born from violence, yet it's the one that disgusts you the most.

-Maia Schwartz

gofundme.com

Donate to Menstrual Care Kits for Women and Girls in Gaza, organized by DIYALA ABDLRASUL

Goal Achieved!! #Sisters4Gaza successfully sent 2,000 menstrual… DIYALA ABDLRASUL needs your support for Menstrual Care Kits for Women

Palestinian girls and women are forced to use tents as pads. People boost. Donate if you can

#period

An accurate description of what a period is. #periodssuck #notably #hurtslikehell #accurate #whymustibeagirl