Chronic pain — why science has scant succour for one in five people – Nature book review

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In The Song of our Scars, Haider Warraich draws on personal and professional experiences to explore acute pain, chronic pain and the US medical system’s dismal failures to address them effectively. 

Are mothers too easy to blame? – Nature book review

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Rachel Yehuda’s 2016 study claimed that the children of Holocaust survivors have epigenetic changes at a particular site in the genome, and those changes make them more susceptible to stress. Yehuda’s study has been criticized often for its small sample size, tiny control group and outsize claims of causality. Sarah Richardson’s book The Maternal Imprint broadens this criticism to the field of human transgenerational epigenetics more generally. She argues that social assumptions about maternal responsibility lend ideas in this field more credibility than they deserve on the basis of the data. 

The children of sickle cell disease are growing up – Nature

Taj Francis

Sickle-cell disease was once a childhood ailment, simply because many children with the condition died before reaching adulthood. Since 1972, the United States has managed to drastically reduce childhood deaths from the disease, but the outlook has worsened for adults. 

“Adult sickle-cell programmes should be funded like the paediatric ones are,” says Sophie Lanzkron, a haematologist specializing in adults at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s not about education: specialists generally know what to do, the health-care system just isn’t doing it, she says.

What Parents Need to Know About the New Mask Guidance – Slate

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last week that people vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer need to wear masks indoors. Plenty has been written about whether this decision was well communicated, whether it was too hasty, and whether it could possibly have the intended effect of swaying anyone toward vaccines. But if you’re a parent like me, already exhausted from a year of trying to take care of a small person during a global crisis, you likely have one overarching question: What am I supposed to do now?

“It seems like kids are just getting overlooked in this,” says Tara Smith, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Kent State University in Ohio and parent of a 7-year-old. To navigate this new morass of risk calculations, I spoke to Smith and Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor at the University of California, San Francisco. They had somewhat different outlooks—illustrating just how much work is being thrust on parents right now to make constant judgment calls.

Mutations tied to autism may alter gut function, microbiome in mice – Spectrum

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Mutations in the gene NLGN3, found in some people with autism, alter mice’s gut nervous system, two new studies suggest. One of these mutations also affects the population of microbes that live inside their gut. The results may help explain why gastrointestinal problems often accompany autism, says lead researcher Elisa Hill-Yardin.

Postpartum body changes you should know about – The New York Times

Illustration by Hye Jin Chung

When I was pregnant, I read four books on pregnancy and two on childbirth. I read no books on what my body would be like during the first year postpartum, because I had never heard of any. During that first year, many people are underinformed about their own bodies, even as they learn vast amounts about their babies. For this piece, I discussed health in the first postpartum year with two ob-gyns, a nurse, two physical therapists who specialize in treating postpartum bodies and two mothers. The experts stressed that you don’t have to live with pain, discomfort or leaking urine, and that your health is as important as your baby’s.

How to Keep Pumping When You Return to Work – The New York Times

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The vast majority of working parents can’t keep their babies with them while they’re working. This means that if they want to keep breastfeeding while they work, they have to pump breastmilk. I talked to three breastfeeding experts and two lactation consultants; as well as five parents who navigated the decision to pump breastmilk when they returned to work as restaurant managers, police, scientists, soldiers and consultants. In researching this article, I heard about women pumping in printer closets, in the back of Humvees, in bathrooms and while driving. The experts I consulted all said that the best approach is to know your rights, make a plan and communicate transparently with your employer. Both experts and parents agreed: above all, be kind to yourself.

Gene therapy targets sickle-cell disease – Nature

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Gene therapy might offer a cure for sickle-cell disease, and clinical trials are already under way. The approach is promising because just a single gene needs correcting: the one for the β-globin subunit of haemoglobin, the body’s oxygen ferry. But Elliott Vichinsky is concerned that the same problems that make current sickle-cell care ineffective will also plague this gene-therapy treatment. He estimates that at least 30% of his adult patients with sickle-cell disease die from preventable causes. As his patients attest, sickle-cell care is often inadequate for reasons that have little to do with scientific advancement and lots to do with economics and racism.

 

When the Baby You’re Expecting Turns Out to Be Twins (or More!) – The New York Times

Illustration by Pablo Rochat

So you’ve just found out you’re pregnant with multiples. It’s O.K. to freak out. It’s a lot to process. Katie Ring panicked when she found out she was pregnant with twins, even though she was not at all surprised. “It felt like too much,” she said. “I felt like I was going to lose my whole identity.” For this guide, I sifted through the science, consulted three obstetricians who specialize in multiples, interviewed a mom of twins, and compiled the information you need to know about being pregnant with multiples, without the scaremongering.

VBAC Facts: Is Vaginal Birth After Caesarean Right for You? – The New York Times

Illustration by Lily Padula

If you’re pregnant and you’ve previously had a cesarean section, you may have a decision to make: Do you try for a vaginal birth after cesarean (otherwise known as a V.B.A.C.) or schedule another cesarean? Deciding whether or not to try for a V.B.A.C. means reckoning with the details of your medical situation in the context of your values, according to the experts. “I think it’s important to know that V.B.A.C. is an option for most women, and their chances of success are actually quite high,” said Dr. Jeanne-Marie Guise, M.D. M.P.H., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine.