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The White House on Tuesday issued its first-ever presidential proclamation marking Black Maternal Health Week as part of an effort to highlight racial gaps in pregnancy and childbirth-related deaths. The U.S. retains the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, largely due to high mortality rates among Black mothers, according to research by Commonwealth Fund. Black women in the U.S. are 2.5 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. (Chen, 4/13)

“Black women in our country are facing a maternal health crisis,” said Vice President Kamala Harris, who hosted a round table on the issue alongside Susan Rice, director of the Domestic Policy Council. “We know the primary reasons why: systemic racial inequities and implicit bias,” Ms. Harris added. The U.S. continues to have the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world, driven in large part by the high mortality rates among Black mothers. (Haridasani Gupta, 4/13)

When state child welfare officials place kids in foster care due to parental neglect (as long as there’s no physical or sexual abuse), their parents are typically entitled to regular, supervised in-person visits that allow hugging, playing, and, in the case of newborns, breastfeeding. But as the pandemic raged last spring, these visits went virtual in all 50 states, forcing thousands of new parents to attempt the impossible: bonding with their children — even infants in some cases — over video chat. Recently, The Marshall Project posted questions on national listservs of family court lawyers, asking how these virtual visits have been going over the past 12 months. We received dozens of responses, overwhelmingly negative, from advocates for parents and children alike. (Hager, 4/13)

The unwritten rituals of home pregnancy tests are known to many: Don’t linger too long in front of the shelf in the drugstore. Hide the box under other items in your basket. Wrap up the used test before throwing it in the trash. Pregnancy tests have evolved since they first hit aisles in the 1970s, but the anxieties around them have not. Multiple scenarios can bring on varying degrees of disquiet, from bumping into someone you know while furtively buying a test, to feeling alone and bewildered once the result is known. “There’s so many other experiences and feelings involved, other than the actual peeing on a stick,” said Cynthia Plotch, the co-founder of Get Stix Inc., which does business as Stix. (Deighton, 4/14)