In the latest week, Westchester County saw its COVID-19 cases fall about 7%, reporting 2,062 cases and six deaths.That rate lagged behind the pace of vaccination in older children and adults. That reflects about 5% of the age group, which was approved for shots in June. In New York, for example, only about 53,100 children ages six months through 4 years have received an initial dose of COVID-19 vaccine. ![]() Meanwhile, authorities continued to struggle to improve COVID-19 vaccination and booster rates nationally, despite the lingering threat of serious illness and death posing a disproportionately higher risk among the unvaccinated and un-boosted population. State and federal health officials urged people to wear masks indoors in public spaces in all counties within the high-risk category, regardless of vaccination status, to help curb the virus' spread. A total of 10 counties, including those in New York City, Long Island as well as Westchester, Rockland and Putnam, remained in the high risk category due to COVID-19 infection rates and strain on local hospitals, according to federal guidelines. So you still have to endure all of the things that any other mom of a living child would.Further, the virus currently posed a comparatively higher threat in the New York City area, including parts of the Hudson Valley. "Your body doesn't realize that you don't have a baby to care for. This is about women having the right to heal from nine months of pregnancy and birth and the postpartum effects," Crough said. "What I said to them was, this is not just about grieving. We applaud the efforts these advocates, like Crough, are undertaking and urge our representatives in Albany to take engaged and active notice. Among the priorities expressed to us by the Lower Hudson Valley community of stillbirth parents are efforts to boost preventive care for at-risk mothers and babies and to end stigmas that exist within the medical community that manifest in the ways providers talk with parents who've lost their children. A bill that would extend a tax credit is also pending in New Jersey's Legislature.Īdvocates for stillbirth parents are commendably seeking other improvements in the way our healthcare system treats parents whose babies are born still. New York lawmakers could look across its border to seek guidance from their colleagues in Connecticut, which in May became the third state to offer stillbirth parents a tax credit, following Louisiana and Minnesota. There is some movement in Albany to help these families - and we urge the Legislature to move quickly to make their struggles a priority in the 2023 session.Ī handful of bills - that would extend paid family leave to stillbirth parents in one case and another that would seek a $2,000 tax credit for parents whose babies are born still - need to gain traction and move forward. Instead, Crough took two weeks of paid time off, her firm extended her two weeks of bereavement leave and then she took the short-term disability. Crough had planned on taking advantage of New York's paid family leave for as many as 12 weeks after her delivery, but Olivia's death ended her eligibility. The maximum amount of short-term disability in New York is $170 a week.Ĭassidy Crough, a 34-year-old attorney who lives in Connecticut and practices in Beacon, learned her daughter, Olivia, did not have a heartbeat in March. New York also requires employers to provide disability benefits to employees for injuries or illnesses they sustain while not at work. ![]() ![]() The law allows for up to 12 weeks off at 67% of an employee's pay, up to $1,068 a week in 2022. In other situations, the policy allows employees to care for a sick family member or deal with family situations when a family member or domestic partner in the military is deployed abroad. ![]() The policy, as Dombrowski reported, allows employees to take job-protected paid time off for bonding with a newborn or adopted or fostered child. New York is one of a handful of states that offer paid family leave. Prevention improvements sought: What does the future of stillbirth prevention look like? These doctors have an idea Special report: After a stillbirth, NY families have little to no safety net. Seeking benefits for grieving New York families whose babies have died has become a cause for Vazquez and others in the state's emerging community of advocates for stillbirth families. "Grief is there waiting to just consume us, but what are we going to do about it?" "All the things that I wanted to do were just gone in an instant," Vazquez said of his feelings after he learned Ariah had died. Now, parents like Amy Lee-Vazquez and Abraham Vazquez, of Larchmont, who lost their daughter, Ariah, when she was born still in 2019, are amplifying calls to extend leaves and other benefits to families whose babies are born still.
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