(WTTW News)
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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.

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“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.”

(WTTW News)

Advocates and lawmakers are calling for a permanent child tax credit to help lessen the economic burden on struggling families.

(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.

(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.

(Courtesy of Mr. Dad’s Fathers Club)

Community leaders say recognition, support and mentorship for fathers is critically important — not only for the dads themselves but also for the kids they’re raising.

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.

(Pexels / Kei Scampa)

A nearly decade-long study from the National Bureau of Economic Research looked at births in California. The study found that babies born to the richest Black women were still more likely to die than babies born to the poorest White women.

Socially distanced kindergarten students wait for their parents to pick them up on the first day of in-person learning at Maurice Sendak Elementary School on April 13, 2021, in Los Angeles. Vaccination rates for U.S. kindergarteners in 2022 saw a significant drop for the second year in a row, according to new data released Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023, and worried federal officials are launching a new campaign to try to help bring them back up. (AP Photo / Jae C. Hong, File)

The pandemic disrupted vaccinations and other routine health care for children, and also taxed the ability of school administrators and nurses to track which children weren’t up-to-date on shots.

This image provided by Novo Nordisk in January 2023, shows packaging for the company's Wegovy drug. Children struggling with obesity should be evaluated and treated early and aggressively, with medications for kids as young as 12 and surgery for those as young as 13 who qualify, according to new guidelines released by the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (Novo Nordisk via AP)

The longstanding practice of “watchful waiting,” or delaying treatment to see whether children and teens outgrow or overcome obesity on their own only worsens the problem that affects more than 14.4 million young people in the U.S.

(Photo by C D-X on Unsplash)
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Developed by the Committee for Children, a nonprofit dedicated to the well-being of children, the podcast uses stories, music and activities to help children and adults talk about their feelings and solve problems together. And it doesn’t shy away from topics like racism, prejudice and equity.

1st-8th grade YMCA summer program students at Cullen Elementary get creative at a Summer 2022 Spoken Word Field Trip workshop in Chicago's Roseland neighborhood. (Courtesy 826CHI)

Three new publications by Chicago students are available for pre-order now through the work of nonprofit 826CHI, which partners with Chicago Public Schools to provide free, project-based field trips to CPS classrooms, as well as in-school programming.

(benscripps / Pixabay)

The first payments began to flow nearly nine months after the Chicago City Council approved the program’s funding as part of its 2022 budget.

(WTTW News)

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has had an immediate impact on women with unwanted pregnancies. But people who desperately want to have children are also being impacted.

(WTTW News)
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The Illinois Child Care for All Coalition is calling for publicly-funded universal child care, saying it is unavailable and unaffordable for many in the Prairie State. 

(CNN)

Within days of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control approving vaccine courses for children six-months through 4 years old, area hospitals, pediatricians and health care centers are beginning to put those doses in children’s arms.