51ÊÓƵ

Morton Hospital, owned by Steward Health Care, is closing its labor and delivery services amid an extended slide in the number of women having babies at the facility. The same pattern is playing out in other Massachusetts communities and across the country. (Dayal McCluskey, 3/27)

University Hospitals was close to one day away from moving eggs and embryos to safety when a temperature fluctuation in a storage tank damaged them, rendering all 4,000 eggs and embryos in the hospital system's care nonviable. Initially, UH said 2,000 eggs and embryos were affected but late Monday revised that number to include all the specimens and upped the number of patients involved to 950 from the original 700. (Christ and Washington, 3/27)

A Pennsylvania branch of Planned Parenthood says a tweet declaring the need for a Disney princess who's had an abortion was not appropriate and the organization has taken it down. An executive for Planned Parenthood Keystone says the group believes pop culture plays a "critical role" in educating the public and sparking "meaningful conversations about sexual and reproductive health issues and policies, including abortion." (3/27)

Both sides of the abortion debate are making a final push to submit comments on a proposed rule that would allow health professionals to decline to participate in procedures they oppose on moral or religious grounds. The public comment period on the Trump administration's proposed rule ends Tuesday with more than 64,000 comments submitted from both sides of the issue. The rule also would impact policies around end of life care, contraception and other issues. (Raman, 3/27)

When journalist Maya Dusenbery was in her 20s, she started experiencing progressive pain in her joints, which she learned was caused by rheumatoid arthritis. As she began to research her own condition, Dusenbery realized how lucky she was to have been diagnosed relatively easily. Other women with similar symptoms, she says, "experienced very long diagnostic delays and felt ... that their symptoms were not taken seriously." (Gross, 3/27)

North Carolina’s prison system will no longer shackle pregnant inmates to their hospital beds while they are in labor. Prisons director Kenneth Lassiter signed a new policy on Monday to end the use of leg or wrist restraints on pregnant inmates who are giving birth, The News and Observer reported. The inmate will still be handcuffed during transportation to the hospital, as long as she could protect herself or the fetus if she were to fall. (Gstalter, 3/27)

On a recent Sunday, Emily Dial prepared to deliver a baby, just as she had done so many other times in her years as a nurse midwife. She scrubbed in, donned surgical gloves and surveyed the delivery room at Frankfort Regional Medical Center in Kentucky. There were about half a dozen members of a medical team inside, all preparing for the scheduled Caesarean section.Ready at last, Dial climbed onto the operating table and lay down as someone covered her with a see-through plastic drape. (Wang, 3/27)