Illinois State Capitol. (WTTW News)
,

Illinois has laws to protect against gender discrimination in pay, but it can be difficult for workers to know whether there’s a pay discrepancy. That may be easier to figure out starting next year.

(WTTW News)

It’s part of a nationwide increase in congenital infections, passed along to an infant during pregnancy. If undiagnosed, the baby can be born with a number of health issues, including cataracts, deafness and a low birth weight, or can even be stillborn.

(WTTW News)
,

A recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling is raising questions about IVF. In Illinois, the Reproductive Health Act protects the increasingly popular path to parenthood while establishing people’s right to make decisions about their own reproductive health.

This image provided by Perrigo Company shows boxes of Opill, the first over-the-counter birth control pill available later this month in the United States. (Perrigo Company via AP)

The drug’s approval came despite some concerns by FDA scientists about the company’s results, including whether women with certain medical conditions would understand that they shouldn’t take the drug.

State Rep. Lakesia Collins, D-Chicago, speaks at an event announcing the planned opening of a birth center on the South Side of Chicago Monday. (Credit: Illinois.gov)

The nonprofit Chicago South Side Birth Center will mark the city’s second active midwife-led birth center, but the first for the South Side. Advocates say the Black-led center offers safe birthing alternatives in a medically underserved area of the city. 

Maternal mental health disorders such as suicide and opioid overdose are responsible for nearly one in four maternal deaths in the U.S., research shows. (Prasit photo / Moment RF / Getty Images / File via CNN Newsource)

The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is two- to threefold greater than in other high-income countries, and it has only increased in recent years, according to a new evidence review.

(StockSnap / Pixabay)
,

“Some people feel it’s a stigma, and I don’t want people to feel like it’s a stigma,” state Sen. Cristina Castro said. “There’s great treatment out there. We’re just trying to help lower the barrier to that treatment.”

FILE - Pope Francis attends his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. (Andrew Medichini / AP Photo, File)

In a foreign policy address to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Pope Francis lamented that 2024 had dawned at a time in which peace is “increasingly threatened, weakened and in some part lost.”

froSkate attendees braved skating on the rain-slick concrete at the Wilson Skate Park, 700 W. Wilson Ave., on Oct. 26, 2023. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)

“They make an environment where it’s easy to be a beginner, it’s easy to not know people and find someone to talk to and work on a trick together,” longtime skateboarder Randi Rogers said of froSkate, a Chicago collective centered around women, people of color and queer people.

(Pexels / Kei Scampa)

The state still has a long way to go toward ensuring that all Illinois residents can have a safe and healthy pregnancy, Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said in a press release.

Milk and Moon Lactation Counseling LLC in Spring Valley, Ill., is a milk depot and donor milk dispensary in partnership with the Mothers’ Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes. (Courtesy of Milk and Moon Lactation Counseling)

Demand for donor breast milk has been growing as the country continues to recover from last year’s infant formula shortage that left many store shelves empty following a host of supply chain issues and product recalls.

A woman works on a lung cancer vaccine on October 1 at the Ose Immunotherapeutics laboratory in Nantes. (Loic Venance / AFP / Getty Images)

Awareness of the lung cancer’s effects on women is lacking, experts say, and the U.S. government spends significantly less on its research than on similar studies in men.

(Pexels / Kei Scampa)

Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It’s a grim reality that led advocates to start The Gathering campaign.

Inside the Waukegan Planned Parenthood. (WTTW News)

This Saturday marks one year since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reversed the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision. Since then, many people have flocked to Illinois in search of abortion access.

(Dana Neely / Stone RF / Getty Images)

The U.S. maternal mortality rate nearly doubled between 2018 and 2021, with COVID-19 as a “contributing factor” in more than 30% of maternal deaths, according to a new report. The report also says medical debt amounts to $88 billion nationwide.

Project Hope assists young mothers through their pregnancies and beyond. (WTTW News)

Project Hope supports young mothers through their pregnancies and beyond. Doulas give prenatal support, and care countinues with parenting classes, intervention screenings and peer groups.