Standing up for unborn babies, no matter the circumstances of their conception, is on par with the pro-life movement’s long-held belief that humans are endowed with natural rights at conception.

Yet, GOP politicians and national pro-lifers alike have let Democrats goad them into a life-centered fight that distracts them from the task at hand. Many of them have taken soft or even sympathetic positions on reproductive technology. Others have become so preoccupied with Trump’s agenda that they’ve failed to gain ground in the battle to protect life on the state level.

Meanwhile, Democrats, with help from their allies in the corporate media, have taken advantage of pro-lifers’ inconsistency on IVF to make messaging and policy gains that benefit their abortion extremism. //

It’s the pro-life movement’s job to set the tone for the fight for life. Yet, a significant number of the movement’s biggest political champions are endorsing a procedure that no doubt kills more life than it creates. That’s a problem that would have been better remedied by prevention than intervention.

Now, committed pro-lifers are fighting an uphill battle against some of their biggest allies to explain to voters duped by Democrats’ deceptive narrative-setting and corporate media’s twisted polls why promoting and subsidizing IVF is wholly incompatible with protecting unborn babies or successfully curbing the industries that profit from the destruction of life.

Labor often begins or rapidly intensifies in the middle of the night. This is because an essential chemical for early labor is melatonin [1]. The dark calm of the night is the ideal birth environment, the perfect setting to bring a baby into the world. Given the chance to progress through labor uninterrupted, a woman will continue to crave a calm, den-like setting. But if labor is disrupted by some kind of stress, labor may actually slow until the woman is in a safe, calm space again [2].

That’s why the ideal environment for labor is a dim room, free of harsh blue lights [3]. Quiet, calm music or silence should fill the space. Some research indicates that some kinds of music can decrease anxiety during labor, while other research finds there is no difference compared to silence [4]. Notably, research does not find that calm music increases anxiety, pain perception, or length of labor, so playing your favorite calming playlist is worth trying if you enjoy music! Other women might prefer the repetition of prayers, counting, or mantras while laboring.

ACOG recommends in both term and preterm infants that the clamping of the cord is delayed by at least thirty to sixty seconds. They also assert that the concern for increased risk of PPH is unwarranted.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the cord should not be clamped earlier than is absolutely necessary. This usually means delaying the cord by three minutes. They emphasize not clamping the cord earlier than one minute, except in the case of necessary infant resuscitation that cannot be done with the cord intact.

The American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) recommends delaying cord clamping by at least two to five minutes following birth. Typically, the cord stops pulsating by five minutes.

We all think we know the story of pregnancy. Sperm meets egg, followed by nine months of nurturing, nesting, and quiet incubation. But this story isn’t the nursery rhyme we think it is. In a way, it’s a struggle, almost like a tiny war. And right on the front lines of that battle is another major player on the stage of pregnancy that not a single person on the planet would be here without. An entirely new organ: the placenta.