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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.

Protest to Support Afghan Women

SIGN THE PETITION HERE.  There is QR code at the bottom of this post as well. 

“You're the only one who can hold your head up high

Shake your fist at the gates saying

"I've come home now!"

Fetch me the Spirit, the Son, and the Father

Tell them their pillar of faith has ascended

It's time now

My time now

Give me my

Give me my wings!”

“10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2)”

-Maynard James Keenan

RIP Betty 🌹 You were an amazing Woman who brought light, laughter, comfort, love and so much more to so many of us. A true advocate for all animals, and a wonderful spirit that shined so brightly. Sleep well Betty, you’ve earned your peaceful rest. 🌹

January 17, 1922 - December 31, 2021

born to be an abstract concept, forced to be a percievable entity

Why don’t we have visual examples of how much is a full pad with realistic looking blood!? I just blew out a gush of blood and clots out the front and now I have to change from looking like crotch got murdered. Like not all blood is liquid and instantly absorbed. Sometimes it goopy like gel or oil. Anyways glad I didn’t go to school cause fuck!! The gushing alone is worrying enough!

Likely The bloody truth and the adhesive backing isn’t even half a century old.

I feel like pads were designed by people who have never seen a vagina, let alone had a period

☹️

The bloody truth. It keeps the human race alive

Literally (There is power in the blood)

It’s very disappointing how the female sexuality is often reduced to our bodies (how they look) and sex. Menstruation is, among other things, a part of our sexuality. And I hate when people get disgusted at that. So… Showing off your tampon string is cool, showing your pad is cool, showing your period blood is cool too. And you shouldn’t be sorry for that.

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

At what age did you give up shaving everything? I'm 17 and considering it but I'm hesitant because I'm REALLY hairy and I'm kinda afraid of what I'll look like completely untrimmed

Last year in June. That would make it 20 years old. Don’t worry, honestly. I go swimming every weekend now, something I never thought I’d be able to do only a few months ago. And here I am. And believe me, everything is unshaved - armpits, legs, bikini line, all of it on show. Happy trail. You name it. It’s not as bad as you think. In fact it’s not bad at all. It’s very liberating! You also learn something very important which might be distantly somewhere in your mind, but not really present until you do it. That your body is your own body! If it were as hairy as a bear - surely that should be your perogative right? Why does it concern anyone else? It’s like eating lunch and worrying someone else won’t like what you’re having. LOL.

17 is great! (Any age is great) This is an investment, begin to believe in yourself now, and it doesn’t matter how steady you go, or even if you stop - as long as you don’t go backwards, you’ll be way past me at 20 and you’ll be glad you took off the shackles. I remember while doing this, many MANY times, I reluctantly decided to hide myself when I had the opportunity to show it. And I hated myself for being ashamed and hiding it, but you know what I would have hated 100x more? If I had shaved for other people’s opinions when I didn’t want to. So I held on, as stagnant and as stuck as it felt, I said to myself I’d rather die than have one hair on my body shaven off because I’m scared. I ended up hiding a lot more than I thought, but then you know what happened? One time I showed it. And then I showed it again. And again. And now? I’m swimming with it all out there. It might take a little while, but it’s lasting. The feeling you get when you realise how free you are is addictive, and when you feel it you’ll thank yourself, and wonder how bizarre life would be if you continued caring so much what other people think. :) Not only that but you realise how incredibly insignificant it is. And despite it maybe taking a while to get to that confident stage (though for you it might not take months, it could be weeks, or days, whatever) when it does happen, it’ll be one of the most instantly gratifying things you’ll remember, and it will be gratifying every, single, time. That you’re you. And no one can change that.

And I know because you’re young you’re worried about the social effects as well, even if you do accept yourself. Believe me all that happens naturally. During the time I stopped shaving everything (so a few months ago) I applied for a job through Facebook as there was no other way to do it and my cover photo was one of my photography photos showing my armpit hair, and I got a call, and I got the job a week later. Even though I thought, oh God they’ll think I’m a weird, still, I thought well there’s nothing to lose. And I was actually so surprised. So then instantly all my colleagues knew about it through that - no one said a thing. We went out a lot, had drinks together, we were cool. Some people met me before they saw my Facebook, and we were really cool with each other, then they saw it, and they didn’t act any differently. Similarly because of that, a lot of people from Uni found out that way even through the times I was scared to show it. Girls from class came up to me saying they were shocked at how brave and courageous I am, and they really think that’s awesome. I like learning languages and many times through online I come across people I can Skype with to practice the language more. These being many guys from Japan who are my age, who have then added me on social network and seen that, and didn’t even say a thing about it, and we still chat just like before. The only one who mentioned it, said he thought it was really cool.

The point I’m trying to make is, things just gradually happen on its own, and people don’t care as much as you think. If they do, it simply means they’re shallow dickheads, and that’s a very clear sign not to hang out with that person. Therefore if anything it’s a good way of seeing who actually cares about you, and who is actually a cool down to earth person.

I’m not saying there’s no more difficulties I am not personally facing, but with the way it’s gone, to have done as much as I have, and discovered as much as I have, in a period of say 8 months - that is incredible. If that’s not hopeful, I don’t know what is.

If you’re ‘REALLY’ hairy as you say, then come over and we’ll be super hairy together LOL because you’re not alone.