Miscarriage, Spontaneous Abortions

The purpose of the research is to demonstrate how the practice of abortion in India involves state intervention in women’s personal lives. I demonstrate how significant contradictions arise in state practice towards women’s access to abortion. I discuss the implications of these contradictions for women. Moreover the sensitive issue of female feticide, which is the product of gender inequality, has been highlighted to show how this practice is culturally embedded and are generated indirectly by some of the state policies.
This research shows how abortions in India are often a breach of reproductive rights of women, and merely serve as a tool to address the concern about population explosion. Moreover the state has imposed the 1994 Pre Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act to prohibit sex selective abortions from above, without bringing changes from below, which is making the law stringent implications ineffective.

This paper will study the effect of armed conflict and civilian instability on the spontaneous abortion rates and cesarean birth rate. Data from the official records of patients admitted to the gynecological department of Al-Jamhouria hospital (the main maternity hospital in the largest city in Eastern Libya) were used in this study, for both informative and comparative purposes. A statistical analysis was done using professional software, namely SPSS (through t-tests, binomial tests and binary logistic regression). It was found that there was a significant increase in the rate of spontaneous abortion (compared to the same period in the previous year). Also,
there was a significant decrease in the age of patients admitted to the OT as well as a significant decrease in the admission of foreign nationals. Moreover, there was an increase in the rate of cesarean births. The possible implications of these figures are further discussed in the paper. It was concluded that the armed conflict had caused an increase in both the spontaneous abortion rate as well as the cesarean birth rate. Future research should deal with the long term impact of the conflict on the general health of the people and proper social, psychological and marital support should be given to the mothers who had suffered from such an abortion.

The stillbirth of a wanted baby is a devastating and life altering experience that happens more than 26,000 times each year in the United States; but the impacts and implications of this loss on families is rarely discussed in public spaces. While another kind of pregnancy ending, abortion, dominates political discourse about reproduction, the absence of talk about stillbirth prevention or support in those same contexts is worthy of further investigation. This project explores stillbirth as a communication phenomenon and draws upon narrative, performance and rhetorical articulations of testimony to extend our understanding of how narratives of stillbirth circulate in current conditions of discourse. A model for viewing how dominant and counter narratives circulate is explained (Narrative Loop Model) and a new model for illuminating the unique functions of testimony is given (Testimonial Loop Model). This dissertation employs performance and rhetorical methods to explore testimonies of stillbirth, both naturally occurring and solicited through interviews, in order to create several performance texts that put pregnancy-ending narratives in conversation with each other on stage. Analysis of the performance text and choices, as well as reflection on the embodied performance experience and member checking, yielded several findings. The discovery of somatic sentience and its influence on performance ethnography is discussed. Themes of relationality and temporality were found in the performance of testimonies of stillbirth. The implications of these findings add to the communication discipline’s understanding of how and why stillbirth testimony may circulate, its impact on conditions of discourse for pregnancy ending and its potential use as/in intervention, support, and advocacy. Ethical considerations and limitations are addressed.

Considerações Gerais O abortamento espontâneo é um processo que se inscreve no ciclo gravídico-puerperal e que se traduz em aspectos físicos, psicológicos e socioculturais interdependentes. Intercorrência freqüente e de etiologia controversa, é particularmente discutida a participação de variáveis psicológicas em sua ocorrência, numa perspectiva psicossomática. As repercussões emocionais do abortamento espontâneo na vida da mulher e do casal tendem a ser minimizadas culturalmente, especialmente no momento em que a sociedade parece estar mais mobilizada para discutir aspectos concernentes ao controle da natalidade, inclusive através da indução do abortamento, ou se maravilha face às novas técnicas de fertilização assistida, panacéia da esterilidade. Nesse contexto, parece haver pouco espaço para se atentar às vivências associadas à ausência de maternidade/paternidade, quando esta não decorre de uma escolha consciente do casal mas se lhes é imposta através do abortamento espontâneo. Os recentes avanços relacionados à fertilização assistida e seus elevados índices de sucesso vem estimulando diferentes autores a estudarem os aspectos emocionais associados à utilização das diferentes técnicas e suas conseqüências na dinâmica do casal, antes estéril. Esta maternidade, o filho e

Doświadczenie żałoby po dziecku w perspektywie biograficznej
praca doktorska z dziedziny: nauki społeczne, socjologia
napisana pod kierunkiem dr hab. Anny Kacperczyk prof. UŁ

Streszczenie
Celem rozprawy było dokonanie rekonstrukcji indywidualnych sposobów radzenia sobie z żałobą po stracie dziecka wraz ze społecznymi wyobrażeniami i postawami względem śmierci dzieci oraz żałoby po nich. Praca podzielona została na cztery części, wstęp i zakończenie. 

Część I. Podstawowe pojęcia – proces negocjowania obszaru badań. Autorka prezentuje najważniejsze pojęcia, które ujawniły badania, a których zrozumienie jest kluczowe, do zrozumienia procesów zachodzących w życiu rodziców po stracie dziecka. W rozdziale pierwszym znalazły się rozważania związane z postrzeganiem śmierci przez pryzmat tabu, strachem przed śmiercią, problemami wynikającymi z ujmowania żałoby w stadia lub fazy, przypisywaniem jej przebiegu do płci oraz traktowaniem żałoby jako zaburzenia psychicznego. W rozdziale drugim autorka definiuje, jakimi rodzajami straty (aborcja, poronienie, śmierć okołoporodowa, śmierć w wyniku choroby, śmierć w wypadku lub z nieznanych przyczyn) zajęła się w dalszej części swojego wywodu, a tym samym do kogo kierowała się z prośbą o udział w badaniu. Omówiono również rodzaje straty (dzieciobójstwo, zabójstwo, samobójstwo), które nie zostały włączone do badania, co stosownie uzasadniono. W rozdziale trzecim wyjaśniono kwestie związane z tożsamością rodzica, macierzyństwem i tacierzyństwem (rozumianym jako rodzicielstwo bliskości). Następnie omówiono szerzej koncepcję więzi i żałoby pojawiającej się w wyniku straty. Przedstawiono definicje rozlicznych rodzajów żałoby, które funkcjonują w literaturze przedmiotu.

Część II. O metodologii badań nad procesami żałoby po dziecku. W rozdziale czwartym zaprezentowane zostały strategie i podejścia badawcze zastosowane w pracy – teoria ugruntowana, socjologia nowego materializmu i posthumanizmu, technika autobiograficznego wywiadu narracyjnego. Uwagę skupiono także na problemach etycznych i wynikających z przyjęcia techniki wywiadu narracyjnego, jako sposobu zbierania danych. Autorka dzieli się swoim warsztatem i opisuje przebieg badania razem z trudnościami, które napotkała.

Część III. Żałoba po dziecku – o doświadczeniu rodziców. Rozdziały piąty i szósty prezentują materiał badawczy, ukazując procesy zachodzące w życiu rodziców z momentem zaistnienia straty. W Rozdziale piątym pojawiają się relacje rodziców opisujące śmierć dziecka. Uwaga badaczki skierowana jest również na osieroconych ojców, którzy chociaż są mniej widoczni w mediach społecznościowych, czy na forach dla rodziców po stracie – również przeżywają żałobę. W kolejnym rozdziale autorka przechodzi do praktyk kulturowych, których celem jest negocjowanie tożsamości rodzica i próba odnalezienia się w rzeczywistości bez dziecka. Opisano działania społeczne, artystyczne, religijne, ale również podejmowaną aktywność fizyczną. W rozdziale siódmym wskazano na procesualny charakter żałoby i tworzenia nowych więzi ze zmarłym dzieckiem.

Część IV. Społeczne konteksty śmierci dziecka. Ostatni rozdział rozprawy prezentuje obszary interakcji rodziców z przedstawicielkami i przedstawicielami instytucji (szpital, wsparcie psychologiczne, opieka duszpasterska, zakład pogrzebowy, cmentarz). Autorka rekonstruowała na podstawie wywiadów sytuacje, z którymi mają styczność rodzice po śmierci dziecka. Z drugiej strony starała się oddać głos osobom reprezentującym instytucje, dla których śmierć cudzego dziecka jest również obciążająca. Wskazano dodatkowo dwa nowe zawody, które pojawiły się w „obszarze umierania i żałoby” – doulę umierania i towarzyszkę w żałobie. 

Podsumowanie. Żałoba po dziecku ukazana została jako chaotyczny, niekończący się proces, otwarty i wymagający ciągłych działań, których celem jest radzenie sobie ze stratą, kontynuacja więzi i negocjowanie swojej tożsamości jako rodzica po stracie. Autorka zaznacza przy tym, że przedstawione praktyki są tylko możliwością podjęcia danej ścieżki, jednakże jak wiele jest sposobów przeżywania żałoby i jak różnie swoją stratę odczuwają osieroceni rodzice, tak wiele będzie praktyk, które mogą okazać się dla nich właściwe.


Słowa kluczowe: żałoba po dziecku, tożsamość rodzica, żałoba jako proces, żałoba jako chaos, kontynuacja więzi
_____________________

The experience of mourning a child in a biographical perspective
PhD thesis in the field of social sciences, sociology
written under the supervision of prof. Anna Kacperczyk


Abstract
The aim of the dissertation was to reconstruct individual ways of dealing with grief after the loss of a child along with social perceptions and attitudes towards the death of children and mourning for them. The work is divided into four parts, introduction, and conclusions.

Part I. Basic concepts – the process of negotiating the research area. The author presents the most important concepts revealed through the research, understanding of which is the key, to understand the processes taking place in the life of parents after the loss of a child. The first chapter includes considerations related to the perception of death through the prism of a taboo, fear of death, problems resulting from the classification of mourning into stages or phases, ascribing its course to gender, and treating mourning as a mental disorder. In the second chapter, the author defines what types of loss (abortion, miscarriage, perinatal death, death as a result of disease, death in an accident or due to unknown causes) she dealt with in the further part of her argument, and thus who she invited to the research. The types of loss (infanticide, homicide, suicide) that were not included in the study were also discussed, and properly justified, why they were out of researcher’s focus. The third chapter explains the issues related to the parent's identity, motherhood, and fatherhood. Then, the concept of bond and mourning resulting from loss was discussed in more detail. The definitions of various types of mourning that function in the literature on the subject were presented at the end of the chapter.

Part II. On the methodology of research on the processes of mourning a child. The fourth chapter presents the strategies and research approaches used in the work – the grounded theory, sociology of new materialism and posthumanism, the technique of autobiographical narrative interview. Attention was also focused on ethical issues and the ones resulting from the use of the narrative interview technique as a way of collecting data. The author shares her workshop and describes the course of the study together with the difficulties she encountered.

Part III. Mourning a child – about the parents' experience. The fifth and sixth chapters present the research material showing the processes that take place in the parents' lives at the time of loss. In Chapter five, there are parents' accounts of the child's death. The researcher's attention is also directed to orphaned fathers who, although they are less visible on social media or on forums for parents after the loss, also experience mourning. In the next chapter, the author moves on to cultural practices aimed at negotiating the parent's identity and trying to find a reality without the child. Social, artistic, and religious activities are described, as well as physical activity. Chapter seven shows the processual nature of mourning and creating new ties with a deceased child.

Part IV. Social contexts of a child's death. The last chapter of the dissertation presents the areas of interaction between parents and representatives of institutions (hospital, psychological support, pastoral care, funeral home, cemetery). Based on the interviews, the author reconstructed the situations that parents encounter after their child's death. On the other hand, she tried to give the floor to people representing institutions for which the death of someone else's child is also aggravating. Additionally, two new professions that appeared in the "area of dying and mourning" were described – the death doula and the mourning companion.

Conclusions. Child mourning was presented as a never-ending chaotic process, open and requiring continuous actions aimed at coping with the loss, continuing bonds and negotiating one's identity as a parent after the loss. The author emphasizes that the practices presented are only the possibility of taking a given path, however, as there are many ways of experiencing mourning and how differently orphaned parents feel their loss, there will be many practices that may turn out to be appropriate for them.


Keywords: mourning the child, parental identity, mourning as a process, grief as chaos, continuing bonds

Autor w swoim artykule wychodzi od mesjańskich nadziei związanych z rodzeniem dzieci. Przeciwstawia entuzjastycznemu spodziewaniu się zbawienia związanego z urodzeniem dziecka koncepcję mesjanizmu pustynnego Derridy, czyli oczekiwania pozbawionego horyzontu oczekiwania. Następnie ukazuje dziecko, jako niosące wraz ze swoim pojawieniem się obietnicę śmierci, wykorzystuję grecki mit o Kronosie oraza filozoficzne rozważania Georgesa Bataille'a. W kolejnej części Autor koncentruje się na zjawisku utraconych wizji przyszłości, które nazywa obsoletami nowoczesności i stara się wyjaśnić współczesną niechęć do tworzenia idealnego świata jutra. Ostatnią część artykułu stanowi interpretacja "Huby" (2014) w reżyserii Anki i Wilhelma Sasnalów, która staje się w tym kontekście próbą powstrzymywania się od przymusu (re)produkcji.

A postal questionnaire case-control study examined miscarriage in wives and congenital conditions in offspring of the 2007 membership of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, a group of ex-servicemen who were stationed at atmospheric nuclear weapon test sites between1952-67. Results were compared with a veteran-selected control group and also with national data. Based on 605 veteran children and 749 grandchildren compared with 311 control children and 408 control grandchildren there were significant excess levels of miscarriages, stillbirths, infant mortality and congenital illnesses in the veterans' children relative both to control children and expected numbers. 105 miscarriages in veteran's wives compared with 18 in controls OR=2.75 (1.56, 4.91; p=00016). There were 16 stillbirths; 3 in controls (OR=2.70 (0.73, 11.72; p=0.13). Perinatal mortality OR was 4.3 (1.22, 17.9; p=.01) on 25 deaths in veteran children. 57 veteran children had congenital conditions vs. 3 control children (OR=9.77 (2.92, 39.3); p=0.000003) these rates being also about 8 times those expected on the basis of UK EUROCAT data for 1980-2000. For grandchildren, similar levels of congenital illness were reported with 46 veteran grandchildren compared with 3 controls OR=8.35 (2.48, 33.8) p=0.000025. There was significantly more cancer in the veteran grandchildren than controls. Whilst caution must be exercised due to structural problems inherent in this study we conclude that the veterans' offspring qualitatively exhibit a prevalence of congenital conditions significantly greater than that of controls and also that of the general population in England. The effect remains highly statistically significant even assuming a high selection bias in the responses and credibility is strengthened by the high rates of miscarriage reported by the veterans compared with controls, a result which could hardly have been due selection effects.

Background: Despite its commonality, there is a paucity of literature on miscarriage in non-Western societies. In particular, there is little understanding of how people ascribe cause to miscarriage. This research sought to gain an in-depth understanding of notions of miscarriage causality and risk amongst Qataris. Methods: The study adopted an exploratory descriptive qualitative approach and collected data during 18 months of ethnographic research in Qatar, including semi-structured interviews. The sample includes 60 primary participants (20 pregnant women and 40 women who had recently miscarried), and 55 secondary participants including family members, health care providers, religious scholars and traditional healers. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Primary participants were interviewed in Arabic. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and translated into English. Data was analysed using an inductive thematic approach, which involved identification and application of multiple codes to different text segments. Data were encoded manually and examined for recurrences across the data set. Similar quotations were grouped into subcategories and further categorized into main themes. Results: A number of key themes emerged, revealing Qatari women attributed miscarriages to a number of factors including: supernatural forces, such as God's will and evil eye; lifestyle, such as physical activities and consuming particular substances; medical conditions, such as diabetes; and emotional state, such as stress, and emotional upset. Resting, avoiding stress and upset, maintaining healthy diet, and spiritual healing (ruqyah) are seen as a means to avoid miscarriage.

Al centro di questo saggio c'è il dibattito pubblico e politico che ha portato all'approvazione della legge 194/1978 di cui Giovanni Berlinguer (deputato comunista alla Camera dalla VI all'VIII Legi-slatura) è stato relatore di maggioranza. Si presta attenzione al ruolo di alcuni attori: il Partito radicale cui era federato il Movimento di liberazione della donna; il movimento femminista, inteso nella sua pluralità; l'Unione donne italiane; il Partito comunista italiano.

***
In 2018 “Fondazione Gramsci onlus” organized a conference focused on the PCI’s senator Giovanni Berlinguer (“GIOVANNI BERLINGUER E LE RIFORME DEL 1978” Sapienza University of Rome, October 2018). The on-going results of this research experience was published in this book chapter.

ObjeCtives
To validate recent guidance changes by establishing the performance of cut-off values for embryo crown- rump length and mean gestational sac diameter to diagnose miscarriage with high levels of certainty. Secondary aims were to examine the influence of gestational age on interpretation of mean gestational sac diameter and crown-rump length values, determine the optimal intervals between scans and findings on repeat scans that definitively diagnose pregnancy failure.)
Design
Prospective multicentre observational trial.
setting
Seven hospital based early pregnancy assessment units in the United Kingdom.
PartiCiPants
2845 women with intrauterine pregnancies of unknown viability included if transvaginal ultrasonography showed an intrauterine pregnancy of uncertain viability. In three hospitals this was initially defined as an empty gestational sac <20 mm mean diameter with or without a visible yolk sac but no embryo, or an embryo with crown-rump length <6 mm with no heartbeat. Following amended guidance in December 2011 this definition changed to a gestational sac size <25 mm or embryo crown-rump length <7 mm. At one unit the definition was extended throughout to include a mean gestational sac diameter <30 mm or embryo crown-rump length <8 mm.
Main OutCOMe Measures
Mean gestational sac diameter, crown-rump length, and presence or absence of embryo heart activity at initial and repeat transvaginal ultrasonography around 7-14 days later. The final outcome was pregnancy viability at 11-14 weeks’ gestation.
results
The following indicated a miscarriage at initial scan: mean gestational sac diameter ≥25 mm with an empty sac (364/364 specificity: 100%, 95% confidence interval 99.0% to 100%), embryo with crown-rump length ≥7 mm without visible embryo heart activity (110/110 specificity: 100%, 96.7% to 100%), mean gestational sac diameter ≥18 mm for gestational sacs without an embryo presenting after 70 days’ gestation (907/907 specificity: 100%, 99.6% to 100%), embryo with crown-rump length ≥3 mm without visible heart activity presenting after 70 days’ gestation (87/87 specificity: 100%, 95.8% to 100%). The following were indicative of miscarriage at a repeat scan: initial scan and repeat scan after seven days or more showing an embryo without visible heart activity (103/103 specificity: 100%, 96.5% to 100%), pregnancies without an embryo and mean gestational sac diameter <12 mm where the mean diameter has not doubled after 14 days or more (478/478 specificity: 100%, 99.2% to 100%), pregnancies without an embryo and mean gestational sac diameter ≥12 mm showing no embryo heartbeat after seven days or more (150/150 specificity: 100%, 97.6% to 100%).
COnClusiOns
Recently changed cut-off values of gestational sac and embryo size defining miscarriage are appropriate and not too conservative but do not take into account gestational age. Guidance on timing between scans and expected findings on repeat scans are still too liberal. Protocols for miscarriage diagnosis should be reviewed to account for this evidence to avoid misdiagnosis and the risk of terminating viable pregnancies.

Stained Radiance (first published in 1930) was the début novel by James Leslie Mitchell (better known as Lewis Grassic Gibbon).

It charts the intertwined lives of a group of men and women struggling to live in London in the wake of the First World War and the General Strike of 1926, one of them a clear forerunner of Chris Guthrie in Gibbon’s later classic trilogy, A Scots Quair. It is remarkably in advance of the many political novels which appeared in the decade to follow, not only in its twin satires on both mainstream politics and nascent British communism, but also in its forthright exploration of the sexual politics of the period.

The text is here supported for the first time by a scholarly introduction, explanatory notes and commentary.

ISBN 9781910858226

ABSTRACT
In depth study of thousands of articles in various international journals and information from text books is collected to conceive and compile evidences in favour of this theory. This paper contains evidences that cancer cells (CCs) are present in the body of every individual, they manifest as diabetes simultaneously causing other symptoms of metabolic syndrome. After they grow beyond a particular threshold, in presence of insulin resistance (IR), CCs in the body cause hyperinsulinemia and hyperglycemia. Hyperinsulinemia in presence of IR, aid quick proliferation causing increased incidence of cancer. High LDL requirement and ability to recruit a food supply cause dyslipidemia. This deadly combination results into diverse complications; body needs to fight these CCs. Evidences support THREE ways adopted by the body to control them, hypertension, increased androgen levels and macrophage activity, resulting in cardiac disorders, PCOS and autoimmune disorders; dyslipidemia is a common feature. The only way to safely control the activity of these CCs is to reduce glucose availability, and starve them by improving insulin sensitization. Insulin sensitization can be achieved through physical exercise and insulin sensitizing agents (ISA). We can conclude that CCs are the cause of syndrome X and not the result of it. CCs may be responsible for degenerative and autoimmune disorders, besides syndrome X and cancer. Insulin sensitization through physical exercise or ISA should be effective in the treatment and prevention of Syndrome X. ISA should be able to inhibit tumor growth.

This book shares a story of transformation. It is a journey into what is highest in all of us. The Angelic qualities this Novel reveals are levels of awareness in each of us. Let your creative imagination reflect on the nature of soul, and how, each of us embody spiritual attributes known to be in the realm of Angels. "Sam Oliver has done it again! Angel Marie...is a thought provoking and heartfelt book. I am sure all of us have visited the place in us that spawned this story. We can all relate and appreciate the meaningful message in this book." - Dr. Eric Shapira, Author of A New Wrinkle: What I learned from Older People Who Never Acted Their Age. "A novel like no other of it's kind on Angels as told through the eyes of a child. It helps add meaning to an unthinkable loss." - Kara Sweatt, RN, BSN Director of Hospice Care

While there are textbooks on pregnancy loss, and workbooks on grief and loss, Carrying On is the first and only workbook on pregnancy loss.

This is important because journaling is a time-tested tool for healing and recovery.

Furthermore, pregnancy loss deals largely with grief over what was expected rather than offering memories of a life fully lived. It therefore requires a different processing of emotions, though the emotions themselves may be similar to those for other forms of bereavement.

It is a myth that everyone can simply get over pregnancy loss by having another baby. That would be like saying the death of a child should be less grievous to the parent if they have other children alive at the time.

This workbook takes a biological, psychological, social, and spiritual approach to healing and recovery. Use it to help yourself or another to journal through the journey of Carrying On.

Collegiality and professionalism are touted as crucial in academic career success and security, and as required for participation in academic spaces. Conversely, care, essential to well-being and social reproduction, is rarely portrayed as necessary or even appropriate in academic space. This auto-ethnographic article uncovers discursive constructions of professionalism, collegiality, and care. I frame them as practices academics are unevenly required to perform-whether explicitly demanded or as a necessity for well-being-through the lens of my experience of fertilities as a graduate student. Rather than a single biological event, fertilities encompass ongoing pressures, desires, and experiences born throughout what are seen as 'childbearing years.' Within academia, fertilities are constructed as threatening to academic success, particularly as they impose the burden of care work that may detract from academic work, impede professionalism, and leave less time for collegiality. This piece contributes to the intersection of three phases of fertilities experienced during graduate school: early pregnancy, miscarriage diagnosis, and the process of becoming un-pregnant. I highlight my experience of fertilities because they are common yet hushed by stigma-a silence co-constitutive with the under-theorizing of fertilities and leading to the absence of care, exacerbated by university policies and norms. Through this engagement, the article aims to change the parameters of the speakable within departments so we can seek and receive the care we need. Without discarding the positive potential of collegiality or professionalism, I advocate for mentorship, slow scholarship, and intersectional acts of care, arguing that 'care' should be neither stigmatized nor mandated. Instead, the definition must be collaborative, evolving, and intersectional. As bell hooks writes, "imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn to love [or care] if we began with a shared definition."

This paper proposes an anti-abortion philosophy (AAP) containing some definitions, two main principles and some important recommendations (all based on a set of very solid scientific and juridical arguments), which AAP should be implemented in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and all organic laws on Earth, so that humanity to make a great step towards the definition of true high-morality civilization.
#DONATIONS. Anyone can donate for dr. Dragoi’s independent research and original music at: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=AQYGGDVDR7KH2

In this article, I highlight how Romanian women make sense of the losses of pregnancies and babies. Based on 15 months of fieldwork in a Transylvanian town, and on interviews with and observations among ‘angel mothers’ (women who have lost unborn or live-born children) in the Romanian capital Bucharest, I discuss the disappointments and desires that surface when reproduction goes awry. The criticisms of these ‘angel mothers’ throw into sharp relief wider disappointments with biomedical, political, and religious establishments, and continuing social struggles in post-communist Romania. Although women’s personal predicaments are thus deeply connected to broader structural shortcomings, their coping strategies are highly intimate and non-political. Women focus on creating a spiritual bond between themselves and their lost babies – one that transcends the hardships of earthly life and makes women proud to be the mothers of little angels.

Previous studies showed that cultured mouse trophoblast stem cells (mTSCs) have most rapid proliferation, highest stemness/potency, least spontaneous differentiation and stress-activated protein kinase (SAPK) at 2% O2 compared with traditional 20% O2 or hypoxic (0.5% and 0% O2) conditions. Switching away from 2% O2 induced fastest SAPK responses. Here we tested the dose response of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in its active form (pAMPK Thr172P) at 20-0% O2 and whether pAMPK has similar rapid change when mTSC culture are switched away from optimal 2% O2. There was a delayed increase in pAMPK level at ~6-8h after switching away from 20% to 2%, 0.5%, or 0% O2. Switching from 2% O2 to 20%, or 0.5% and 0% O2 led to rapid increase in pAMPK in 1h, similar to previously reported SAPK responses when departing from 2% O2. 12h of 0.5% O2 exposure lead to cell program change in terms of potency loss and suppressed biosynthesis as indicated by the level of phosphorylated inactive acetyl CoA carboxylase (pACC). Phosphorylation of ACC was inhibited by AMPK inhibitor Compound C, but potency loss was not. The result suggests an important aspect of stem cell biology, which demands rapid stress enzyme activation to cope with sudden change in external environment from least stressful (2% O2) to stressful conditions.