Need To Know | November 12, 2021

What Paternity Leave Does to Men; Fertility Center Mixes Up Families’ Embryos; Pregnant Woman Dies After Doctors Refuse Abortion

In Nyssa's weekly 'Need to Know' series, we recap the three most important stories related to reproductive health, sex education, and bodily autonomy.

What Paternity Leave Does for a Father’s Brain, The New York Times

In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Dr. Darby Saxbe and Sofia Cardenas illustrate the urgent need for paid family leave by presenting how men benefit from paternity leave. From better relationships with their children to how the brain “learns” to be a father, the piece presents a multitude of facts and statistics from recent studies showing these changes, including a study revealing how even a week or two of paternity leave made couples 26% more likely to stay married. The article also explores the impact of paternity leave on a mother’s postpartum recovery—it makes a big difference—and in same-sex marriages.

A fertility center mixed up two couples’ embryos, lawsuit says. When they found out, they had to trade babies., The Washington Post

After years of trying for a second child without success, a California couple turned to IVF. In a shocking story reported by Julian Mark, the couple reveals details behind the lawsuit they filed against the fertility clinic whose embryo was switched with another family's. When Daphna Cardinale gave birth to their baby and her husband Alexander saw her for the first time, he was surprised by the baby’s hair and skin color, not like his, his wife’s, or their first child’s. In this devastating and important story, Mark paints a picture of what it was like to raise a baby whose DNA kept the parents questioning.

Death of pregnant woman ignites debate about abortion ban in Poland, Reuters