Disabled people get pregnant and give birth at the same rates as nondisabled ones. But their outcomes are often far worse, and modern medicine has largely turned its back on them.
Patient Safety and Ethics
Four families share how the pandemic changed their care plans during an "emotionally horrifying" year.
Experts urge people to think now about the type of care they want in the future.
Emily DeRuy reported this story while participating in the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2021 California Fellowship.
Other work by her includes:
COVID forced Bay Area families to make agonizing elder-care decisions. Is there a fix?
Getting older doesn’t have to be scary. Things to con
Though disabled women now get pregnant and give birth at the same rate as nondisabled ones, modern medicine has largely turned its back on them.
The number of patients with “unsalvageable” disease has ticked up. So too has the rate of amputations.
UCLA study answers some of the questions expectant mothers have had since early in the pandemic, when so much was unknown.
Birthing parents report isolation during the pandemic and stress after the closure of the labor and delivery center in Fort Bragg last year, revealing strains on maternal healthcare in Mendocino County.
Over the past two years, at least 16 people at the Mendocino County jail have overdosed while in custody.
"Nearly every disabled person I’ve talked with has their own stories of pain and discrimination," says radio producer Christopher Egusa. "The dismissal and invisibility are common experiences."