Dr. Lara Freidenfelds

Irin Carmon on How the United States Has Made Pregnancy Unbearable An interview with the author of a new book documenting the brutalities of childbirth in the post-Dobbs era.

A really special conversation I got to have with @byreginamahone.bsky.social about my book UNBEARABLE in @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The Other Miraculous Pregnancy of Advent After having spent 15 years writing a book about miscarriage, it is Elizabeth’s story I find most poignant.

It's Advent: time to reflect on the quickening of Elizabeth's pregnancy as told in the Gospel of Luke. That moment in the bible means so much more than we moderns, with our pregnancy tests and ultrasounds, generally grasp: sojo.net/articles/opi...

KEEP SHARING YOUR STORIES about increased ACA premiums due to the disappearance of subsidies. The stories clearly are having an impact, they help people feel less helpless, and they create solidarity that leads to action.

Mine went from $395→ $821. What happened for you?

It drives me nuts when reporters let Leah Libresco Sargeant call herself a feminist and don't question it. Would you call the Pope a feminist? No? Then neither is Sargeant.

"Spears and Geruso persuasively argue that a big reduction in world population will not actually solve the problems many of us imagine they will solve... Too many commentators are hoping that a shrinking population will naturally put less pressure on the environment."

After the Spike: A Liberal Argument for More Babies “The Spike” – that is what demographer-economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso call the dramatic rise in the world population in the recent past, and the equally dramatic population decline proje…

Why should conservatives "own" the arguments for bigger families and demographic stability? Here I review After the Spike: Progress, Population, and the Case for People: nursingclio.org/2025/10/08/a...

@mikegeruso.bsky.social

The free speech activist who built a list of professors he worked to get fired for their speech must be celebrated for his support of free speech, and anyone who quotes his speech accurately in context will be fired and/or face state punishment by the champions of free speech, do I have that right?

If the right *truly* believed Charlie Kirk was a defender of free speech and someone who was fine with dissenting opinions, they wouldn't be engaged in a massive campaign to punish anyone who didn't "mourn him properly."

They clearly know all of that is bullshit. Only the media was conned.

Miscarriage is a Crime Again In 1650, a young, single English servant named Anne Greene miscarried into the privy and did not tell anyone. We know her story because she was arrested for infanticide, convicted despite exonerati…

Today's article pick from Damn History, a free monthly newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer @larafreidenfelds.bsky.social & @nursingclio.bsky.social!

Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe

nursingclio.org/2025/08/20/m...

Miscarriage is a Crime Again In 1650, a young, single English servant named Anne Greene miscarried into the privy and did not tell anyone. We know her story because she was arrested for infanticide, convicted despite exonerati…

This week @larafreidenfelds.bsky.social argues that in a post Roe vs Wade world “Women who lose pregnancies, even before viability, are targeted in ways that strongly resemble early modern infanticide investigations.” nursingclio.org/2025/08/20/m...

We are so excited to have @larafreidenfelds.bsky.social back writing with us! Lara is one of our new writers-in-residence. She will be publishing a series of articles over the next year for NC.

Such an important piece. Thank you, @larafreidenfelds.bsky.social.

Opinion: The problem with ‘bereavement’ leave after pregnancy loss | CNN New Zealand’s designation of paid leave following pregnancy loss is a welcome development for all who care about workers’ well-being and workplace equity, says historian Lara Freidenfelds. But such po...

Laws and rules about "bereavement" for miscarriages are problematic b/c people have a variety of emotional responses to pregnancy loss. Care for women, but don't force them to call it "bereavement." www.cnn.com/2021/04/07/o...

discipline and control other women's childbearing. But it sure seems like it would get us better health care and better cultural and economic support for childbearing.

romanticizing menstrual seclusion and "moon huts" -- but it did present this thought experiment, of what our culture might look like if female bodies were normal/normative.
I don't think it would solve everything, since women have proven plenty willing to

people normally go through menopause, and people need treatments appropriate to that life transition.
I was recently telling a reporter about 1970s cultural feminism, which celebrated (and often essentialized) women's physical and psychological differences from men. Some of it got kind of silly --

easy to take for granted. But think about it for a minute: what if women's bodies were normative, and men's were deviations from that norm? We'd say that people menstruate, and people get pregnant and give birth, except for some people who don't have the capacity for those processes. We'd say that

if we don't, we can't address any body parts or processes that men don't have.
Medical textbooks have traditionally used male bodies to represent "people" and women's bodies only when they need to talk about female reproductive anatomy. This way of thinking is a core theme of patriarchy, and it is

The NIH just cancelled funding for research on how menopause affects the brain and can make it more vulnerable to Alzheimer's. Because Trump's people think it's unfair to study "women's health." Maybe we really do need to be talking about "menstruating people" and "pregnant people," since

"You read books, eh?" A 1949 red scare Herblock cartoon about pressures on teachers that hits hard once again.

Working out of the Mobile Studio today. Got a new drummer. She’s young, but she’s solid 🥁😉

I’m proud to join the great Cyndi Lauper in the fight for women’s rights & healthcare. Go to www.bonfire.com/girlswantrights2025 to get a shirt and learn more about the #GirlsJustWantToHaveFundamentalRights Fund. @tidescommunity.bsky.social

“That they should be the ones to welcome Pope Francis’s coffin in the basilica is because these people are those who represented the focus of his mission,” said Father Giulio Albanese, head of missionary cooperation and communications for the Vicariate of Rome. “They are those who live on the peripheries, geographical and existential peripheries.”

The final honor guard for Pope Francis included migrants, prisoners, transgender people, the homeless and others selected by the Vicariate of Rome as a symbol of the late pope’s mission of inclusion and outreach.

Read more from the funeral: wapo.st/3YdDGqM

That's so awesome :). So many things can be exciting when the world's so new to you! Such a cutie.

New song. Godspeed? Angels In The Ashes? Feeling a little rusty, but wanted to share.🤘🏻💙

Thank you so much! Can't wait to read your history of the female body when it's published!

Erin Maglaque · Frog-Free: Conception Stories I can take a home pregnancy test only eight days after ovulation and discover that I have conceived, the wondering...

"The historian Lara Freidenfelds made a similar argument in her excellent book, The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy... The process of creating new life is fragile, and reversible; it can be heartbreaking to attach so much meaning and hope to something so tenuous." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

In 2017, in NJ-11, we started "Fridays Without Frelinghuysen" outside his office every week b/c he wouldn't hold a town hall or stand up to Trump. He still didn't show. We canvassed hard for Mikie, and voted him out. We need to do this all over the country right now.