Health

(NEW YORK) — Approximately 5.2 million children have lost a parent or caregiver during the pandemic, according to a new study published in The Lancet medical journal Thursday.

An analysis by the same team of researchers in July 2021 had estimated 1.5 million children were orphaned during the first 14-months of the pandemic, meaning they lost at least one parent. But with new variants and a rising death count, the researchers said they felt compelled to re-evaluate the analysis.

Between May 2021 and October 2021, deaths globally nearly doubled compared to the months prior, a jump attributed predominantly to the delta variant. This new study estimates that approximately 5.2 million children are experiencing COVID-related orphanhood.

“What we found was shocking,” said Dr. Susan Hillis, the study’s lead author and a senior research officer at Oxford University, who completed this work while at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of children who lost at least one parent at the end of the first 20-months of the pandemic was greater than the total number of COVID deaths, and this gap is increasing, according to the study.

Children aged 10 through 17 were more likely to have lost a parent, with 2.1 million children affected. Still, over 490,000 children between ages 0 and 4, and 750,000 children between ages 5 and 10 lost a parent or caregiver.

Among all children, 3 out of every 4 lost a father, which is even more significant in low-income countries where the father is more likely to be the primary earner.

“COVID-related orphanhood does not come in waves,” Hillis said. “It is a steadily rising slope with the summit still out of our sight.” Although many may recover from an infection, losing a parent is not something that can be easily recovered from, she said.

“These are 5 million kids in one generation that will be living the rest of their lives in a very different way, and this affects us all,” said Dr. Natasha Burgert, a pediatrician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Burgert was not involved with the study.

As part of their work, Hillis and her team said they developed a real-time calculator to predict loss of parent or caregiver by current mortality data for every country in the world. By the end of January 2022, the estimate had risen to 6.7 million children worldwide affected by COVID orphanhood, according to the research. In the United States, the researchers estimate over 149,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver.

However, despite these staggering numbers, Hillis say there is hope.

For the last 20 years, the U.S. government has been investing in evidence-based programs to ensure orphaned and highly vulnerable children affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic could be protected and supported to reach their potential, the researchers noted.

“We actually know the models that work,” Hillis says. “We have an opportunity to lead by example.”

Experts say these findings underscore the importance of vaccinating adults across the globe.

“Vaccines are keeping people alive in the face of this terrible virus and keeping families whole,” says Burgert.

While authors continue to call for equitable access to vaccines and treatment globally, the millions of children already orphaned still need support, they said.

“We need to be supporting our childcare centers, local schools and larger university systems with the resources needed to create a cushion of support and a safe place for social-emotional learning,” says Burgert. “Educators, counselors, administrators, physicians and legislators need to be preparing for the upcoming impact, and they will need everyone’s help.”

The CDC, WHO and many top experts around the world have agreed to the importance of adding an additional pillar to the world-wide COVID response: Caring for and protecting these children.

There is currently no governmental funding in the United States aimed at acknowledging and protecting these children in their hidden pandemic, the researchers noted.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to change the narrative in our country away from divisiveness towards shared hope,” says Hillis. “It is a moral imperative for us to do what we know works to help the ones at home and to encourage every country in the world to do the same.”

Emily Molina, MD, an internal medicine resident physician at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

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(NEW YORK) — For the first time, medication abortion now makes up the majority of abortions in the United States, according to data released Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.

According to the institute’s survey of known abortion providers in the U.S., 54% of abortions in 2020 were done by medication abortion, a process that involves taking two pills. The number marks a significant increase from the last survey, done in 2017, when medication abortions made up 39% of all abortions.

The increase in medication abortion comes as access to abortion in the U.S. has the potential to be dramatically altered this year. The Supreme Court is expected to rule this spring on a case that has the potential to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that made abortion a federally protected right in the U.S.

If Roe is overturned, more than half of the nation’s 50 states are prepared to ban abortion, according to a Guttmacher Institute report released last year.

At the same time, many states are already enacting restrictions on abortion access, including medication abortion.

More than one dozen state legislatures have introduced bans or restrictions on medication abortion so far this year, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Seven states have legislation pending that would ban the use of medication abortion, while five states are considering laws to prohibit the mailing of abortion pills and eight states are considering barring the use of telehealth to provide medication, according to Guttmacher.

Texas, which last year implemented an unprecedented six-week abortion ban, has already enacted a law restricting access to medication abortion, including banning the mailing of abortion-inducing drugs and narrowing the window in which physicians are allowed to give the medication to seven weeks.

Medication abortions were first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000. FDA guidelines advise that abortion-inducing pills are safe to use up to 70 days, or 10 weeks, after conception, though evidence shows it can be safe even later in pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

In most cases in a medication abortion, mifepristone is taken first to stop the pregnancy from growing. Then, a second pill, misoprostol, is then taken to empty the uterus.

Of the two medications, mifepristone is more restricted by the FDA. Since 2011, the agency had applied a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) to mifepristone, preventing it from being distributed at pharmacies or delivered by mail like other prescription drugs.

In December, under the Biden administration, the FDA permanently lifted its restriction on mifepristone that required providers to dispense the drug in person, allowing it to be delivered by mail.

In its updated guidance online, the FDA cited the need to “reduce burden on patient access and the health care delivery system.”

Women still must obtain the pill through a certified health care provider though and the FDA’s decision is subject to state laws that can criminalize the practice.

Telemedicine for medication abortion is effectively banned in 19 states, which require a provider to be physically present when administering the pill, according Guttmacher.

Complications from at-home medication abortions are rare, happening in less than 1% of cases in one study of nearly 20,000 medication abortions, according to ACOG, which says medication abortion “can be provided safely and effectively by telemedicine.”

Proponents of the FDA’s decision to lift its restriction on mifepristone say that allowing greater access to medication abortion, including via telemedicine, gives more options to the people who need them the most.

Around 75% of abortion patients are low-income residents, and nearly 60% of U.S. women of reproductive age live in states where access to abortion is restricted, according to Guttmacher.

ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Yoga is practiced by tens of millions of people in the United States, but some practitioners are sounding the alarm about what they say is a dangerous spread of anti-science views, including around COVID-19.

Laura Rose Schwartz said she grew so disturbed by what she saw and heard that she left the yoga studio she opened in Virginia.

When she subsequently moved to California, Rose Schwartz said she ran into the same concerns there, too.

“With the pandemic, pretty immediately, I saw a lot of conspiracy theories floating around on social media among yoga and wellness practitioners, misconceptions about the vaccines,” she told Good Morning America. “It seems that anti-vax sentiment is very widespread within the yoga world.”

Cécile Simmons studies disinformation as a research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit organization that studies disinformation and extremism. She wrote an essay last year about her surprise at finding conspiracy theories and disinformation in her local yoga class.

“During the pandemic, more and more yoga influencers have started spreading misleading claims about vaccination,” Simmons told GMA. “We have seen people who have embraced anti-vaccine views and who didn’t have them before.”

Derek Beres, co-host of the podcast “Conspirituality,” which tracks the yoga and wellness communities, said the spread of health misinformation in the yoga community is not new with COVID-19.

“Misinformation has spread in the yoga community for decades,” Beres told ABC News’ Kaylee Hartung. “There is a constant sense of this idea of sovereignty and yoga that I know better than the doctors. I know better than the system.”

Social media has furthered the spread of misinformation, according to Beres.

“It just allows disinformation to spread like nothing we’ve experienced before,” he said. “People are really confused because they see someone that they know and trust and they’re getting misinformation.”

According to Beres, disinformation can be hard to spot on social media. It can also be hard for people to know how to engage with people who deny the science around COVID-19 vaccines.

Beres’ advice is to “listen first and foremost.”

“Start asking them questions based on what they’re actually saying and actually make them self-reflect in the moment about the information they’re giving you,” he said. “It could be contentious, but you might open them up to other possibilities.”

To help counter the spread of misinformation in the yoga community, Yoga Alliance, an organization that describes itself as the largest nonprofit representing the yoga community, told ABC News it has created an “online resource center” with information on COVID-19.

“We are also working closely with public health experts to share timely and relevant information with the yoga community as we all continue to navigate these challenging times,” the Alliance said in a statement.

“We urge everyone in the yoga community, including practitioners, to stay vigilant and active in our shared responsibility by doing what we can to stop the spread of misinformation both online and in our communities,” the statement continued. “This includes only sharing information from credible sources such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and its peer agencies around the world, following science-backed recommendations from these organizations, reporting misinformation on social media platforms, and flagging misinformation when you see it.”

The Alliance continued: “In addition to the human toll, the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to small businesses like yoga teachers and studio owners. We believe that the fastest and most effective route to recovery lies in everyone working together, with the tools available to each of us, so that we can all put this pandemic behind us.”

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(NEW YORK) — As the United States faces a growing mental health crisis among young people, spurred on by the coronavirus pandemic, a nonprofit organization focused on mental health in schools is increasing its efforts thanks to a $15 million donation from Mackenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

Scott, who has so far donated billions of dollars in her pledge to give the majority of her wealth back to society, gave the $15 million donation earlier this month to the JED Foundation, which works with high schools and colleges across the country.

The money, the largest single donation in the JED Foundation’s history, will allow the foundation to scale its work to reach over 12 million students, according to JED Foundation CEO John MacPhee.

“We’re aiming for large, wide-scale impact across the country and her gift is going to is going to help us get there more quickly,” MacPhee told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “Our goal is to triple the number of students that we are covering.”

Scott’s donation, which is unrestricted, meaning the foundation can use it any way it sees fits, comes at a time of “greater than ever” need amid the pandemic, according to MacPhee

“Students have not been in school and now they’re coming back and the schools are just overwhelmed,” he said. “You could also argue that schools are less equipped to be able to actually provide [mental health] support than they were before COVID-19, so we’re hearing just a tremendous need.”

Washington, D.C., and Idaho have one school psychologist for every 500 students, according to a report released last week by The Hopeful Futures Campaign, a coalition of organizations focused on mental health supports in schools. In some states — including West Virginia, Missouri, Texas, Alaska, and Georgia — there is only one school psychologist per over 4,000 students, according to the report.

In the last months of 2021, the U.S. surgeon general warned of a growing mental health crisis among young people, and organizations representing child psychiatrists, pediatricians and children’s hospitals declared a national emergency for youth mental health.

“I’m deeply concerned as a parent and as a doctor that the obstacles this generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate and the impact that’s having on their mental health is devastating,” U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in testimony before senators in December.

As the rates of anxiety and depression among young people increase, schools, where young people spend most of their days, can provide a unique safety net in identifying kids who are struggling and offering support, according to MacPhee.

The JED Foundation focuses on more than just making sure schools have mental health professionals on hand. The goal of the foundation’s efforts, according to MacPhee, is to make mental health awareness and support part of the culture of schools.

“Everyone in the school, everyone in the community has a role to play to support the mental health and well-being of young people,” he said. “It’s a culture of caring where there is really no wrong door, so it is everyone’s responsibility to notice and support someone who might be struggling.”

In New Jersey, the JED Foundation partnered with a high school in need of changing its mental health culture after two alumni died by suicide their freshman year of college.

The high school, Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale, New Jersey, sought out the JED Foundation’s help at the urging of a parent, according to Dr. Jessica Verdicchio, the school’s supervisor of wellness and equity.

“We are a pretty high-achieving district and there’s a lot of pressure surrounding college and the kind of college that you go to and a lot of anxiety around academics and academic pressure,” said Verdicchio. “Our school community was not naïve to the fact that we have and have had challenges.”

Verdicchio said the school’s partnership with the JED Foundation came at just the right time.

“We have seen a pretty huge increase of students who are seeking out services even from last year to this year,” she said. “It’s been quite busy, just making sure that our students feel heard and feel supported, but also connecting them to other resources, sometimes outside of school, and having conversations with families and students.”

When the school started working with the JED Foundation last year, it created an interdisciplinary group of students, parents, teachers, administrators and alumni, led focus groups and conducted surveys to identify areas of change, according to Verdicchio.

Over the past year, the school has launched a speaker series for parents on topics including substance abuse and mental health. It has also trained the entire 1,300-member student body in identifying students who are struggling with mental health and knowing what to do about it, according to Verdicchio.

The school now also does quarterly mental health check-ins with each student and follows up to make sure they are connected with a counselor if they are struggling.

In addition, students formed a Wellness Club, which gives them even more of a role and a voice in mental health support at school, according to Verdicchio.

“Our students really like to have their voices heard,” she said. “They have tons of ideas on how we can continue to support the mental health of students, and I love hearing what they feel like works and what doesn’t.”

Verdicchio said that mental health awareness is now a “part of the fabric of our school.”

“With the JED partnership, what it’s allowed us to do is have a very clear vision of how this is supposed to work and make sure that not just pockets of people are trained, but that our whole staff is trained, and that we’re offering parent training and infusing language regarding mental health and how to cope and how to ask for help as part of the fabric of our school,” she said. “It’s allowed our school as a whole to feel supported.”

How to make sure schools support kids’ mental health

One of the “silver linings” of the coronavirus pandemic, according to MacPhee, is that it has sparked a greater conversation around mental health and kids, particularly in schools.

Part of the change comes from parents who should feel empowered to make sure their kids’ school is a healthy environment, according to MacPhee.

Here are four tips from MacPhee on how parents can get involved to support schools:

1. Ask for the schools’ plan to support mental health. “Every school should have a written plan of how they’re supporting students’ mental health and how they’re reducing suicide,” said MacPhee, noting that schools should have plans to improve mental health.

2. Know the mental health resources available at your child’s school, including mental health professionals on staff and trainings available to staff, students and parents, recommends MacPhee. “In addition to the academic support and the college guidance, parents should be asking about mental health supports as well,” he said.

3. Make sure the school administration supports mental health efforts. “The message to school leadership is that this needs to be a priority, and they control its success by making it a priority of the school,” said MacPhee.

4. Ask how parents can get involved. “Mental health should be a focus of the parent teacher association and other parent groups that are in the community,” said MacPhee.

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(ATLANTA) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 vaccine guidance on Tuesday to recommend that some Americans over the age of 12 who have received a first mRNA vaccine dose, wait up to eight weeks before getting their second dose, instead of the previously recommended three to four.

Several studies suggest that an extended interval between initial dosing may help improve vaccine effectiveness and decrease the small, but potential risk of myocarditis, a rare form of heart inflammation that occurs after vaccination, the agency wrote.

Although an increased risk of myocarditis, particularly among young men, has been identified with both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, extensive data analysis over the course of the pandemic has shown that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, not only in clinical trials, but also in the real world. The risk of myocarditis is also higher if you get COVID-19 itself than with the vaccine.

“mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at the FDA-approved or FDA-authorized intervals, but a longer interval may be considered for some populations,” the agency wrote in its updated recommendations.

In particular, the CDC emphasized that young men, between the ages of 12–39 years, who may be at increased risk for myocarditis, should consider this extended time series.

“Extending the interval between the first and second mRNA vaccine dose to 8 weeks might reduce the risk [of myocarditis],” the agency wrote.

The original waiting period between the first and second dose is still recommended for immunocompromised Americans, adults over the age of 65, and those who may need more rapid protection, due to an increased risk of infection or severe disease.

Experts emphasize that at this time, there is no new safety risk associated with COVID-19 vaccines. This change in guidance is not directly relevant for the 215 million Americans who have already been fully vaccinated. Rather, it is a consideration for those who have yet to be fully vaccinated.

Experts say that Americans should talk to their doctor about potentially spacing out the dosing.

Booster doses continue to be recommended for most Americans, five months after completion of the primary mRNA series, or two months after a Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccination.

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(ATLANTA) — Maternal mortality rates in the U.S. rose during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial disparities that existed before the pandemic were perpetuated, according to a new report published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report looked at data from the CDC’s National Centers for Health Statistics and compared 2020 rates to rates in 2018 and 2019.

Maternal deaths were defined as women who died either while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy.

In 2020, 861 women in the U.S. died of maternal causes — a rate of 23.8 per 100,000 live births, the report found.

This is an increase of 14% from the 754 deaths that occurred in 2019 and up 30% from the 658 deaths that occurred in 2018. In 2019, the rate was 20.1 deaths per 100,000 and even lower in 2018 at 17.4 per 100,000.

The reasons for the increase during the first year of the pandemic were not stated in the report, although the author said the virus likely played a role.

Racial disparities continue

There were large disparities when it came to race and ethnicity. The report found that Black women died of maternal causes at nearly three times the rate of white women, up from around 2.5 times higher than in 2019.

The rate for Black women was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 in 2020 and the rate for white women was 19.1 deaths per 100,000. For black women, the rate increased nearly 26% from the year prior.

Black women also died at higher rates than Hispanic women, who had a rate of 18.2 deaths per 100,000 births in 2020 — a more than 40% increase from the previous year.

What’s more, increases from 2019 to 2020 among Black women and Hispanic women were statistically significant while the increase over the same time period for white women was not viewed as significant, the report said.

The report also looked at maternal mortality rates by age and found that the rates increased as women’s ages did.

The lowest rate was for women under age 25 at 13.8 deaths per 100,000 live births and the highest rate was for women aged 40 and over at 107.9 per 100,000 births, about 7.8 times higher. Older mothers also experienced an increase in mortality that was statistically significant, according to the CDC.

Several studies have found that women who become pregnant after age 35 are considered “high-risk” because they are at an increased risk for complications impacting either the baby or mom including premature birth, excessive bleeding during birth and eclampsia..

Dr. Donna Hoyert, a health scientist in the NCHS’s Division of Vital Statistics and author of the report, said this is likely one of the reasons for the higher mortality rates among older women.

“That and there are a smaller number of individuals who are at the end of reproductive ages, so the statistics become much more variable from year to year,” she told ABC News.

COVID-19 ‘likely’ contributed to rise

The report did not offer theories for why maternal mortality rates rose in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, previous studies have shown that pregnant women are at increased risk of severe complications and death from COVID compared to the general population.

It could also help explain the higher rates among Black women, with Black Americans more likely to suffer from severe effects of the virus than the white population.

“​​Yes, the pandemic likely contributed to the increase from 2019 to 2020 and beyond that,” Hoyert said. “As the pandemic plays out, we want to see how it affects overall mortality rates and our trend of comparable data over time.”

She continued, “There’s been other studies that have come out further documenting continuing morality from COVID-19 and excess mortality associated with that, so it will be something to look into.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Drugmakers Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline announced Wednesday they are planning to ask regulators to authorize their new COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

The companies said data shows the shot works either as a primary vaccine, with 100% effectiveness against severe disease and hospitalization, or as a booster shot to raise antibody levels.

Although they are submitting a request for authorization more than a year after Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were approved in the U.S., Sanofi and GSK are hoping to differentiate their vaccine because it is based on a more conventional protein-based vaccine technology.

Known as a recombinant protein vaccine, it uses the spike protein — which COVID uses to enter and infect cells — to help the body recognize the virus so it can fight it off if a person becomes infected.

This is different from messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology, which is used by Pfizer and Moderna and teaches the body’s cells how to make proteins that trigger immune responses.

It’s also different from Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which is a viral vector vaccine and combines COVID genetic material with genes from the common cold-causing adenovirus to trigger an immune response.

“The evolving epidemiology of COVID-19 demonstrates the need for a variety of vaccines,” Roger Connor, president of GSK Vaccines, said in a statement. “Our … protein-based vaccine candidate uses a well-established approach that has been applied widely to prevent infection with other viruses including pandemic flu. We are confident that this vaccine can play an important role as we continue to address this pandemic and prepare for the post-pandemic period.”

The companies said their data from Phase 3 clinical trials showed two doses of their candidate, called VAT08, was 100% effective against severe disease and hospitalization from COVID-19, according to a company statement.

The vaccine was also 75% effective against moderate-to-severe disease and about 58% effective against symptomatic disease.

Early data also indicated the vaccine was 77% effective against symptoms linked to the delta variant.

When used as a booster shot for an already-approved vaccine, the Sanofi-GSK vaccine increased antibody levels 18- to 30-fold, according to the company.

Additionally, when trial participants were given two doses of the vaccine candidate and then a booster shot, antibody levels rose 84- to 153-fold.

“We’re very pleased with these data, which confirm our strong science and the benefits of our COVID-19 vaccine,” Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president of Sanofi Vaccines, said in a statement. “The Sanofi-GSK vaccine demonstrates a universal ability to boost all platforms and across all ages.”

The study also showed no severe reactions or safety concerns from the vaccine in any age group.

The drugmakers are currently in discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European regulators and plan to submit their data soon.2

It comes just one month after another pharmaceutical company, Novavax, asked the FDA to authorize its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which also uses protein-based technology.

ABC News’ Sony Salzman contributed to this report.

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(FORT WORTH, Texas) — A woman who survived three heart attacks in three days at age 40 is now leading an effort to make Black women aware of the risks of heart disease.

Tara Robinson, of Fort Worth, Texas, is the founder of the Black Heart Association, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to “significantly lower the number of Black deaths caused by heart disease and stroke each year.”

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for Black women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Across all races, heart disease causes one in every five female deaths each year, while only about half of women know that heart disease is their No. 1 cause of death, according to the CDC.

Robinson, now 48, said she had no idea she was at risk for a heart attack, even though she later realized she had symptoms months before, including fatigue, numbness in her arm and pain in her neck.

“I had 99% blockage in my main artery, known as the ‘widow maker,'” Robinson told Good Morning America. “I was completely healthy as far as I knew. No high blood pressure, no cholesterol or diabetes, nothing, but I was highly stressed.”

Robinson said she was even told by doctors that she was too young to be having a heart attack. After she recovered, she said she made it her mission to educate other Black women on the health screenings to get and signs and symptoms to watch.

“The reason God saved me is because I have to do this work,” she said. “I’m the heart healer, mentally and physically.”

Robinson is the brains and heart behind her organization’s mobile heart center, a bus that provides free health screenings across the Fort Worth area.

“Our goal with the mobile bus is to make sure that we are wherever our people are — that’s at the car wash, the barber shop, the beauty shop, the church,” she said. “Wherever you are, that’s where the bus can pull up to.”

According to the CDC, women can reduce their risk of heart disease by getting routine screenings for everything from diabetes and blood pressure to cholesterol and triglycerides.

Black women in particular are more likely to have conditions that increase their risk of heart disease, including high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and pregnancy-related complications, according to Dr. Sandy Charles, a cardiologist and medical director of Novant Health Women’s Heart and Vascular Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“These things frequently cause no symptoms and we don’t know we have them unless we get screened,” Charles said of the risk factors, adding that women can also ask for specific tests like stress tests and CAT scans to check their heart health.

When it comes to blood pressure, a systolic blood pressure of less than 120, and a diastolic blood pressure of less than 80 is considered normal by the American Heart Association.

High cholesterol can contribute to plaque, which can lead to clogged arteries. A total cholesterol of less than 200 mg/dL is considered desirable, including less than 100 mg/dL of LDL and 60 mg/dL or more of HDL, according to the CDC. The recommendations for when to check cholesterol are once every five years after the age of 20, and more frequently if you have a medical condition such as high blood pressure, diabetes or obesity, according to the CDC.

Women can also reduce their risk of heart disease by making lifestyle changes including staying active and eating a clean diet free of foods high in sugar, fat and cholesterol, according to Charles.

When it comes to recognizing a heart attack, women may not experience any chest pains at all, according to Charles. She said symptoms to watch for include shortness of breath, fatigue, nausea and indigestion.

“It’s so important for women to know, and for everyone to know, that nobody knows your body better than you,” said Charles. “So if something doesn’t feel right, do not ignore the symptoms.”

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(BURLINGTON, N.C.) — A North Carolina couple became first-time parents on “Twosday.”

Aberli and Hank Spear welcomed their first child — a girl they’ve named Judah Grace Spear — on Feb. 22, 2022, at 2:22 a.m. at Cone Health Alamance Regional Medical Center in Burlington, North Carolina.

“Everyone in the room, all the nurses were cheering and there’s excitement,” Aberli Spear told Good Morning America. “I was like, maybe it’s because she’s finally born. But then I looked at my husband and I asked him, ‘Wait, what time was she born?’ And he was like, ‘2:22.’ It was funny because we were in room two, and then find out her weight is 122 ounces. So we’re like, ‘OK!’”

Jessica Brown, a nursing director at the Women’s & Children’s Center at Alamance Regional, told GMA the numerology of Judah’s birth stood out to the hospital staff too. “We share in the excitement of every birth at the Women’s & Children’s Center at Alamance Regional, but when you come up with all two’s like this, it is very exciting.”

Aberli Spear said she had initially planned to be induced at the hospital on Feb. 20.

“We were asked to come in to be induced — her due date’s originally the 22nd — but just for blood pressure reasons, they wanted me to come in earlier,” she said. “And so they induced me but it took a while. We labored for 26 hours. She ended up coming on her due date, which is awesome.”

Baby Judah’s memorable arrival is especially sweet for Spear and her husband since at one point they were told they may never have children.

Aberli Spear, 27, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer, in 2014.

“My husband and I had been dating for three months before I was diagnosed … we were told if we got married, wanted to start a family or something, it’d be nearly impossible,” she said. “And so we went to the clinic to talk about freezing eggs and stuff, but it’s like, it’s really expensive and insurance doesn’t cover it so we didn’t do that either.”

Spear, who said she’d always wanted kids, decided to undergo chemotherapy and hope for the best. In 2020, six years after her initial diagnosis, she found out she had finally beat her cancer.

Her cancer journey helped inspire her daughter’s name as well.

“She got her name Judah because it means praise in Hebrew. So it’s kind of funny because I love numbers, love math and all that stuff so this is kind of icing on the cake for me,” Spear said.

Spear’s mom, Kristi Engelbrecht, also told GMA that despite all the “pain and suffering” that Aberli and Hank have endured, she’s excited to see what’s in store for their growing family.

The Spears are over the moon about their little one. “This is something that we didn’t think that we could achieve,” Aberli Spear said.

“She’s definitely a miracle baby,” she added.

As for Judah, Aberli Spear said she had a message for her baby girl: “I want her to know that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, there’s always hope. God is always restoring, repairing and fulfilling your heart’s deepest desires, no matter what they are. He also has a sense of humor clearly. But it’s just, don’t give up hope.”

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(NEW YORK) — A New Mexico infant is happy, healthy and thriving after beating the odds.

Jari Lopez was just 9 inches and weighed only 11.5 ounces, lighter than an average loaf of bread, when he was born at 24 weeks on Feb. 22, 2021.

The micro preemie now has the honor of being the smallest neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) survivor from Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque.

“Really small for his gestational age”

Amber Higgins, Jari’s mother, told ABC News’ Good Morning America that she started seeing a specialist during her pregnancy after her 20-week ultrasound showed that Jari was smaller than normal.

“I saw the specialist and they said that he was still measuring really, really small for his gestational age, so they went ahead and admitted me to the hospital at 23 weeks and I think like, four or five days, just to monitor him daily and do an ultrasound every single day,” she recalled.

It was around this time that doctors told Higgins and her husband Julian Lopez that their baby had a 30% chance of surviving.

“I was pretty scared … I don’t think I realized how serious it was until then,” Higgins said.

A couple days later, Higgins was told it was time to deliver her baby.

“He was still really small, then he started to have some reverse blood flow and his heart rate was dropping here and there. And then I started to have high blood pressure, which they took as a sign of preeclampsia. So they just said that it was best to go ahead and do an emergency C-section at 24 weeks,” Higgins said.

Dr. Jennifer Anderson, a medical director at Pediatrix Neonatology of New Mexico and a neonatologist, was the doctor on call at Presbyterian that day.

“Most babies born or almost all babies born at 24 weeks will need to be put on a breathing machine, will need to [be] intubated or have a deep breathing tube placed and put on a machine to help them breathe,” Anderson told GMA. “And our concern for Jari was, because he was so, so small – he was measuring less than the third percentile, 325 grams, 11 and a half ounces is really, really tiny – I think it’s almost impossible to imagine how small that is. But the equipment only comes so small and so having a breathing tube that was going to be small enough to be able to pass into Jari’s breathing tube, we were just really worried that we weren’t going to have one small enough to fit.”

Fortunately, a nurse practitioner was able to get Jari intubated without a hitch.

“One of our excellent nurse practitioners was able to pass a breathing tube in and put Jari on the breathing machine really quickly after he was born,” Anderson said. “I think we all did a big sigh of relief that the breathing tube fit because we knew that that was going to be his first challenge. And then when we got him kind of stabilized, that’s when I went over to Amber to talk to her and her husband to let them know … that this was going to be a long road for Jari.”

A remarkable beginning

Jari stayed on the breathing machine for about a month-and-a-half and had to remain in the NICU for 127 days, where a team of doctors, nurses and various therapists cared for him and monitored his growth and development. While in the NICU, he had to get multiple transfusions and surgery to repair inguinal hernias but didn’t have any major problems like bleeding into the brain or heart conditions and didn’t need other surgeries like eye surgery, which can be common for babies born so young.

Higgins said she was focused on Jari during much of the time he was in the NICU.

“I was just trying to get through it and trying to help him any way that I could, just being there every day. I don’t think I really thought about how small he actually was until like, now. I look back and I’m like, wow, he was like, really, really small,” she said.

After four months, Jari was cleared for discharge in June.

“He ended up going home on just a little bit of oxygen which is very, very common because we live at about a mile high,” Anderson said of the elevation in New Mexico’s largest city. “So at our altitude, a lot of our premature babies go on oxygen, and he went home on a multivitamin and that was it.”

She added, “His course was remarkably smooth for a baby born this little and this early.”

Jari today

A year later, Jari is now 2 feet tall and about 16 pounds.

Higgins said her firstborn is “real feisty.”

“He gets really excited about some stuff. And then he’s really active too. He moves around quite a bit,” she said, adding, “We’re just still working on catching him up developmentally because he’s more around how old he was supposed to be. But other than that, is perfectly fine.”

Anderson said Jari’s journey has been amazing to witness.

“We see a lot of small babies but he was tiny. And all of us around his bedside was like wow, you know, he’s really little and to see him now, for our whole team, it’s the best feeling in the world to see him now with his chubby cheeks, turning 1, and knowing how far he came,” she said.

Higgins said Jari will get three birthday celebrations to mark his very special first birthday.

She added that she and her husband felt it was important to share Jari’s story with the world.

“We wanted to get his story out there because he was so small. We spent a long time in the NICU and it was lonely,” she said. “The odds weren’t really in his favor so it’s nice to put his story out there and give people hope, who are also having a hard time in the NICU. Maybe their baby’s condition is different, but it gives them hope because he was so small, and he made it.”

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