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As interest grows in alternative birthing choices such as water births, consumption of placentas and deferring newborn vaccinations, doctors should counsel expectant parents on the risks such decisions could pose to babies, a new report said. The clinical report was published online in Pediatrics, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and examined seven emerging birth trends. (Chuck, 1/25)

KHN: After Miscarriages, Workers Have Few Guarantees For Time Off Or Job-Based Help 

For three years, Rachel Makkar said, she thrived in her job as a broker and asset manager at J&B Building Co. in Colorado. She excelled at her work — she said her performance reviews noted that — and she thought it was “the best place I’ve ever worked.” That changed in August. After trying for “a really long time” to conceive a second child, she suffered an early miscarriage at home one weekend. She couldn’t go to work that Monday. “I was really traumatized,” she said. “That entire first week was like a heightened level of emotion that I hadn’t really been through before.” She also had a doctor’s appointment to ensure she wasn’t experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, which would have required immediate surgery. (Covert, 1/26)

For Michelle Leahy, it started with headaches, inflamed rashes on her arms and legs, and blisters in her mouth. Some students and staff at Sky Valley Education Center, an alternative public school in Monroe, also had strange symptoms: cognitive problems, skin cysts, girls as young as 6 suddenly hitting puberty. Leahy, like others, eventually became too sick to return to campus. She developed uterine cancer as her other symptoms escalated. (Ramadan, 1/23)

After the cancer surgeries and treatments, Maddie Barber, 17, had some partial paralysis on her right side.It prevented Maddie, who lives near San Antonio, from playing favorite school sports like volleyball. So her father encouraged her to join Future Farmers of America (officially called the National FFA Organization) and raise pigs with her brother on the family’s nine-acre farm. ... The family has had an overwhelming sense of gratitude since 2018, when Maddie was declared free from the brain cancer, medulloblastoma, that had consumed their lives since she was diagnosed at age 12. This month, Maddie figured out a way she could say thank you to doctors and nurses at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital who not only treated her cancer but were also supportive of the entire family. (Free, 1/25)