Labora Collective

Essays

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 24, 2026

The PatternMembers

144 years. Chinese, Irish, Italian, Mexican, Central American — the same play, different cast. The Bracero Program as America’s confession. 11 employers prosecuted a year, against 125,000 workers.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 24, 2026

The ExhaustionMembers

We built this together — all of us — and they are putting it up for sale for a smaller, more violent version of itself. This is why Black people are so tired. Not from the hatred. From the obviousness of it.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 24, 2026

The Current TheaterMembers

The farm-raid pause that revealed everything. A $150 billion enforcement bill with zero E-Verify. Private-prison stocks up 42% on election night. The border deal killed to preserve the crisis.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 24, 2026

The Opening QuestionMembers

Would you trust someone you believed inferior with your children, your home, your food, your nation? No. So explain to me why you did — and why you built an entire economy on the answer.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 24, 2026

The Origin DocumentMembers

Slavery is not a metaphor for immigration. It is immigration policy — the first imported labor force. No wages, no citizenship, no path to permanence. And what happened when the paperwork changed but the system did not.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 24, 2026

The Supply ChainMembers

A country addicted to racial and economic supremacy, at odds with itself because immigration exposes the conflict. We have an immigration problem because immigrants solve a more fundamental one: our addiction to low-wage labor.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 20, 2026

The Maternity Crash

I argued for universal health care for twenty years on the grounds that it was the decent thing to do. Watching this administration take the instruments apart showed me the argument I should have been making — about who actually holds the risk, what changed in 1990, and how far it has already gone.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 17, 2026

The Suppression Files

I paid $80 to boost a post. The organic post outperformed it by 37%. I paid for audience degradation.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 17, 2026

The Algorithmic Tax

The communities that built these platforms are the ones now paying to reach the audiences they made. How social media extracts wealth from the people who generate it — part one of four.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 17, 2026

What We Built Instead

If the platforms will not distribute your work fairly, build your own distribution. Labora Collective. Yemaya. The Codex.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 17, 2026

The Evidence

Every claim has a number behind it. Reach decay, pay gaps, ad fraud, healthcare AI bias — the data.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 14, 2026

The Bottle Station

Twins, day one postpartum. Severe preeclampsia, the magnesium about to come down. And a conversation about a bottle-washing station that, in the absence of any system at all, is the system she is going home to.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 13, 2026

The Recovery Period Itself

The six-week visit is the one that catches the postpartum hypertension, the postpartum depression, the diabetes screen she cannot afford to miss. A line in a federal budget becomes a closed daycare becomes the visit that never happens.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

You Don't Need a Cabal. You Just Need a World That Doesn't Care.

The Epstein case is not an aberration. It is the ordinary functioning of power when it does not fear consequences.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

More True and More False

An honest accounting of the documented record — between facts too terrible to credit and conspiracies too easy to dismiss.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

Found Liable

Not allegations — findings. The cases against Donald Trump that the courts have already adjudicated. Part two of Proximity and Awareness.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

The Dog That Hasn't Barked

A clinician's read on the documented record of Donald Trump's proximity to Jeffrey Epstein's operation — what is established, what is inferred, and what nobody has explained. Part one of Proximity and Awareness.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

They Are Girls. And They Were Treated Like Currency.

What the January 2026 DOJ release actually showed — and what we keep refusing to look at.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

Stop Doing Pedophile Math

Stop letting clinical terms become an escape route for abusing children.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

Infrastructure We Call a Luxury

America treats childcare as a private luxury. The workforce underneath it — the one that depends on women returning to work — is built on exactly the opposite assumption.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 12, 2026

They Knew. And They Didn't Care.

Names, dates, and the documented relationships of current U.S. officeholders to a convicted sex trafficker.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 6, 2026

Insurance on Paper

When the enhanced Premium Tax Credits expired on December 31, 2025, the marketplace plan became a card she still carries — and a set of appointments she will no longer keep.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 6, 2026

The Day I Bought HerFree

Day two postpartum. Blood pressures still creeping, no safe place to go home to — and a discharge I held back by one day, against the unit's own clock.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 4, 2026

Housing Crisis — The Cortisol PipelineFree

When the address is unstable, the placenta does what placentas do under chronic cortisol load. The path runs from eviction filing to preterm birth, and the discharge sheet has no row for it.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 4, 2026

Housing CrisisFree

Housing is healthcare. A stable, secure place to live is a prerequisite for a healthy pregnancy — and this patient's most dangerous exposure never made it onto the monitor.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 31, 2026

The Card That Just Kicked In

Four clinics in six weeks. A beta-hCG that should have triggered a methotrexate order a month earlier. And a Medicaid card that finally activated the week she arrived in the ED.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 28, 2026

The Midwife Purge, 1900–1930

Between 1900 and 1930, state law and the new American medical establishment drove Black, immigrant, and rural midwives out of practice. The Sheppard-Towner Act (1921) funded the 'education' that displaced them. The workforce collapse in maternal care that defines 2026 begins here.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 26, 2026

March to the Beat of Her Own DrumMembers

Dr. Connor on raising a four-year-old who already knows who she is — and on what it costs a Black girl to keep that certainty in rooms built to take it from her.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 26, 2026

Why Are Black Women Dying of Endometrial Cancer at Twice the Rate of White Women?Members

Uterine cancer is the most common gynecologic malignancy in the US and its incidence is rising. Black women face the worst outcomes — and the screening standards, treatment gaps and trial representation behind that are decisions, not biology.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 26, 2026

Mastitis Is Not Just a Clogged Duct

What every breastfeeding parent should know about mastitis — when it happens, why, what treatment really looks like, when to call your doctor, and what urgent care and ERs often miss.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 24, 2026

They Called the Freezer a NurseryFree

In LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine (Feb 2024), the Alabama Supreme Court held that frozen embryos are children under the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. Within days, three of Alabama's largest IVF providers halted treatment — the ruling protected no embryo and shut down the medicine that creates them.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 23, 2026

The Bargain That No Longer Holds

For two generations the public-health bargain was that income and education would buy a Black woman a safer pregnancy. In 2026 that bargain is being unwound, and the obstetric chart is the first place it shows.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 23, 2026

The Fever I Almost Sat With

A Black physician — in a city, with private doctors and good insurance — sitting on her own postpartum fever of one hundred and three degrees, telling herself she was just engorged. And what that hour taught her about the patient she discharges today.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 23, 2026

She Did Everything RightFree

The ACA made maternity and newborn care an essential benefit every marketplace plan had to cover, and barred insurers from turning women away. This is the patient who did everything right — and the morning the subsidies expired.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 23, 2026

Kicking Away the Ladder

Economic mobility was supposed to be the shield against bad health outcomes. This is what happens to maternal death when the ladder is deliberately kicked away — and why the death rate is the canary.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 17, 2026

When the Hospital Has to Choose Between You and Prison

Idaho's Defense of Life Act permits abortion only to prevent the mother's death, while federal EMTALA requires hospitals to stabilize any emergency, forcing physicians to wait until a pregnant patient is dying before acting. In Moyle v. United States (2024) the Supreme Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted, resolving nothing; St. Luke's airlifted six pregnant patients out of state in early 2024 alone.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 10, 2026

The Zombie Statute They're Bringing Back

The Comstock Act of 1873, an unrepealed federal law criminalizing the mailing of material deemed obscene, including abortion drugs, is being positioned as the administrative mechanism to ban abortion pills nationwide without Congress or the courts. Project 2025 urges the DOJ to enforce it against mailed mifepristone; a December 2022 OLC memo currently limits it, and its rescission is the trigger.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 10, 2026

You Could Be As Great As You Think You Are

A Fourth of July essay on the American promise — and the one thing no dominant people in history has ever done: share power freely. What real greatness would actually cost, and why the case for it is overwhelming.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 9, 2026

Gratitude in the MarginsMembers

Nine voices across three continents, writing from a holiday call shift. The founder on what it costs to build a still self-funded company committed to changing women's health, and eight teammates on what the work means to them — and on why doing the right thing still matters when the world no longer rewards it.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 8, 2026

Building the CodexMembers

A finite, ownable collection that fills as you complete deep, goal-mapped content — turning the time you spend learning into visible proof of what you know. Collector psychology, not gamification: each Codex completes, and then the next one begins.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 8, 2026

Why I Can Say ThisMembers

There is no ready-made archetype that makes a Black woman MD/PhD founder building emergency obstetrical infrastructure legible to funders and partners — so people improvise unflattering ones. Radical transparency is the answer: an asset that cannot be described cannot be valued.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 8, 2026

We're Rebuilding: A Behind the ScenesMembers

A behind-the-scenes note on the Labora Collective rebuild: over the next few days, pages, fonts, and designs may shift across our publications as we unify the visual identity and reorganize the ecosystem. This isn’t an error — it’s a transition, and instead of going silent we chose to keep publishing.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 8, 2026

Balance Isn’t a DestinationMembers

Balance as a daily negotiation rather than a destination. A year of leading a team, mothering, and building while carrying the extra weight the world assigns Black women — and why clarity is kindness, boundaries are structure, and nothing lasting gets built from constant depletion.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 8, 2026

Founder’s StatementMembers

Why Dr. Yamicia Connor founded Diosa Ara, and how post-Dobbs restrictions — from the Zurawski ruling in Texas to the EMTALA fight in Idaho — are endangering pregnant women. The medical case that abortion access is essential to safe pregnancy care.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 8, 2026

Viva VoceMembers

People ask me all the time — why isn’t healthcare different? Why is there no innovation? Why do we keep doing things the same way? The honest answer is because it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. It’s hard and incredibly expensive. It’s time-consuming and stressful. It carries enormous liability and a very high risk of failure.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 6, 2026

We Can Read Too

An engineer, then scientist, then physician explains why a medical-intelligence project reaches back a hundred and fifty years. History resolves what the legal, medical and cultural lenses cannot: the present is a pattern, not an accident.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 3, 2026

Your Pregnancy Is Subpoenaed

The 2024 HIPAA rule that shielded reproductive-care records from out-of-state subpoenas was quietly vacated nationwide in Purl v. HHS, restoring a default framework in which any patient's prenatal, miscarriage, or pharmacy records can be pulled by a hostile prosecutor. The federal privacy floor is gone; the records infrastructure for criminalization is now exposed.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 29, 2026

Comstock, 1873

The federal anti-vice law of 1873 made it a felony to mail contraceptives or 'obscene' medical information. Margaret Sanger was arrested under it. It is still on the books. It is being weaponized to ban mifepristone by mail without a vote of Congress.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 26, 2026

The Team Was ThereFree

A fourth cesarean. A failed spinal converted to general anesthesia. A thin lower-uterine segment and five hundred milliliters of blood. Three people in the room who knew exactly what to do.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 26, 2026

The Fugitive Slave Act, Now With Mifepristone

In 2025 Louisiana criminally indicted Dr. Margaret Carpenter, a New York physician, for a telehealth prescription that was legal where she practiced — the first cross-state criminal prosecution of an abortion provider since Dobbs. New York refused extradition; the case is the template built to gut every shield law in the country.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 25, 2026

The Twelve-Year Pipeline and the Levers We Still HaveFree

The OB-GYN who would have practiced in Idaho in 2032 did not match into an Idaho residency in 2024. A single calendar year of state law produced that fact — and 116 rural L&D closures run on the same arithmetic.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 24, 2026

The OB/GYNs Are Leaving. The Replacements Aren't Coming.Free

A maternal health system does not run on funding and buildings. It runs on specialists — and legal risk and criminalization are driving them out of ban states faster than anyone is replacing them.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 19, 2026

The Surgery She Needs AfterFree

A fifth pregnancy, four children at home, a bladder prolapse that will need surgical repair, chronic hypertension — and a Medicaid coverage window that closes before the surgery can be scheduled.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 19, 2026

The Bounty State

Texas HB 7 (2025) takes the SB 8 civil-bounty design — private lawsuits in place of state enforcement, to dodge constitutional review — and extends it across state lines. Any citizen can sue anyone who supplies abortion medication to a Texan for a minimum of $100,000, with no cap and no standing requirement.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 18, 2026

What Happens When You Cap the Payer of Last ResortFree

Medicaid covers forty-one percent of all U.S. births, sixty-four percent of births to Black mothers, and forty-seven percent of rural births. The OBBBA takes nine hundred billion dollars out of it.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 17, 2026

The Program Holding Up the Whole FloorFree

Medicaid pays for roughly forty percent of all births in this country. Nobody is repealing it — procedural unenrollment is hollowing it out one renewal form at a time.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 16, 2026

Tricare for All: We Already Have the Answer

The United States spends more on healthcare than any nation on earth and gets the worst outcomes among wealthy nations. That is not a mystery requiring a task force — it is a program any competent operator would shut down on sight. And the universal system America already built proves the answer exists.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 12, 2026

The Taper She Could Not FillFree

Three nights admitted for acute heavy bleeding, an IV estrogen drip with a partial response, a transfusion — and a discharge prescription that in 2026 is not really a prescription anymore. It is a question.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 12, 2026

You Cannot Solve What You Are Not Allowed To Name

In 2024 Black women died of pregnancy-related causes at 3.15× the white rate. In 2025, Executive Order 14151 and the HHS communications pause triggered the largest scrub of federal health data in modern history — shutting down PRAMS mid-survey and gutting the CDC reproductive- and minority-health offices that count those deaths.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 11, 2026

The Three Pharmacies That Decide Whether You Get Your MedicationFree

For forty years the corporate pharmacy infrastructure absorbed the medication-access risk of American obstetrics. Post-Dobbs, three chains have decided that risk now belongs to the patient.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 10, 2026

Your Doctor Wrote the Prescription. The Pharmacist Said No.Free

The retail pharmacy is the last node in the reproductive healthcare system — the one standing between a valid prescription and the medication in your hand. The chains are becoming the new gatekeepers.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 10, 2026

Where The Sepsis Wards Came Back

What the laws and rulings actually do to bodies — and where the sepsis wards came back. The medical track of Crisis to Care.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 5, 2026

The Drug That Should Be AnywhereFree

Twenty-nine weeks, blood pressures in the two-hundreds, vessels so constricted no one could place a line — and the one drug whose entire point is that it can be reached anywhere in the world was not in the building.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 4, 2026

The Empty Code Cart, and the Empty Pharmacy Behind ItFree

When the obstetric code cart is empty, the patient who would have survived a postpartum hemorrhage twenty years ago does not survive one today. The empty cart is not an accident.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 3, 2026

What Pro-Life Forgot

On the natural-law tradition the religious right buried, and what it would mean to bring it back.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 3, 2026

The L&D Code Cart Is EmptyFree

Obstetric drug shortages are creating life-threatening gaps in hemorrhage and seizure protocols. Oxytocin, misoprostol, magnesium sulfate—cheap generics that prevent maternal death—are vanishing from hospital code carts while regulators track national output, not bedside reality.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 29, 2026

Either You Marry Your Brother, Or You Don't Vote — H.R. 22 (the SAVE Act)

H.R. 22, the SAVE Act — passed by the U.S. House and pending in the Senate — requires documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. Because a birth certificate rarely matches a married-name ID, the requirement lands on roughly 69 million married women, throttling turnout without banning a single voter.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 29, 2026

The Watching Is the CareFree

In obstetrics, surveillance is the intervention. When we lose PRAMS, we lose the structural context of the patient in the room. The watching is the care.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 28, 2026

The Boondoggle in the BasementFree

How PRAMS is being killed without ever being killed: funding intact, paperwork in motion, the people removed. The timeline from January 2025 to May 2026, the parallel erasures across the federal building, and how Labora is surveilling maternal health without it.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 28, 2026

Why They Came for PRAMSFree

Why would Congress defund the only system that asks mothers why they did not get care? Because the data creates liability. PRAMS tracks the upstream failures, and defunding it severs the causal link.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 27, 2026

No One Signed the Death CertificateFree

The CDC PRAMS team has been on administrative leave for thirteen months; the 2023 dataset was finished and never released; the state grants expired April 30. Action through omission — the same playbook as Title X, applied to America’s only maternal-experience surveillance system.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 22, 2026

The Tubal She ChoseFree

The morning after a postpartum tubal ligation, a 42-year-old patient explains she chose permanence because she no longer trusts that contraception will be reliably available. The federal sterilization rule written to protect women from coercion now helps push them toward it. The decision was hers; the context was not.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 21, 2026

Title X Is Being Dissolved Without a VoteFree

Title X — the only federal family-planning program — is being dissolved without a repeal vote: the administering office cut from ~50 staff to one, the FY2027 mission rewritten from contraception to "fertility awareness," and funding routed toward Crisis Pregnancy Centers. A clinical case opens the pattern; the House markup on June 5 is the next inflection point.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 21, 2026

What the Lawyers KnowFree

Administrative starvation: how you dismantle a program without repealing it — hollow out the office, squeeze the money, reinterpret who qualifies. Title X is the case study, the 2019 gag rule is the receipt, and three statutory counters exist that nobody has pulled.

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Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 6, 2026

The Republican Manufactured Healthcare Crisis

It is 2026. They took it. The four phases of how American women's health was deliberately dismantled. Texas maternal mortality up 56% — white women up 95%. The ban states are killing the women who voted for the bans.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • April 29, 2026

Take The Word Back

Lionel Trilling wrote in 1950 that American conservatism expressed itself not in ideas but in irritable mental gestures seeking to resemble them. William F. Buckley founded National Review in 1955 to manufacture a tradition, expelling the John Birch Society, the overt white supremacists, and Ayn Rand; the Heritage Foundation followed in 1973, the Manhattan Institute in 1978. The infrastructure looked genuine. Then Trump arrived, every guardrail came down in one cycle, and Heritage produced Project 2025.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 26, 2026

The Well

Capacity accounting, feedback as dominance behavior, and why protecting your bandwidth is the most mission-critical decision you make.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 10, 2026

PRAMS Funding Expires in April. Here’s What We Lose.

The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System has tracked maternal health data since 1987. Federal funding expires April 2026. Here’s what’s at stake.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 5, 2026

What It Costs

On Power, Structural Racism, and the Real Price of Building While Black and Female in Medicine

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 3, 2026

How Bladder Irritants, Hormones, Diet, and Stress Shape Your Symptoms

Installment 4 of Labora Collective's Painful Bladder Syndrome Series - A Journey to Validation and Relief.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 3, 2026

Preparing for Labor and Delivery When You Have Bladder Pain

Installment 5 of Labora Collective's Painful Bladder Syndrome Series - A Journey to Validation and Relief.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 3, 2026

What Happens After Birth—The Path to Long-Term Treatment

Installment 6 of Labora Collective's Painful Bladder Syndrome Series - A Journey to Validation and Relief.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 3, 2026

What Painful Bladder Syndrome Actually Is—and Why Pregnancy Makes It Worse

Installment 2 of Labora Collective's Painful Bladder Syndrome Series - A Journey to Validation and Relief.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 18, 2026

What Members Get

The Labora Collective — a unified content + community ecosystem built for reproductive health, justice, and survival.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 17, 2026

Proximity Is Not Protection

On Marco Rubio, the Racial Draft, and the Dangerous Delusion of Adjacency

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 12, 2026

Membership

What you get

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • January 29, 2026

Start Here

Welcome. The Labora Collective is a member-supported medical publishing and community platform focused on reproductive health, justice, and survival—built for people who need more than headlines, wellness platitudes, or generic “talk to …

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • November 30, 2025

Labora Rounds: The Innovation & Funding Brief

October 12-20, 2025

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • November 23, 2025

Join the Labora Collective

Three pillars. One mission. Reproductive justice for all.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • November 23, 2025

Welcome to Doula's Corner

The Blueprint: Innovation for patient centered medicine is a Labora Collective Publication bringing you healthcare innovation transforming women’s health from Dr. Yamicia Connor, founder of Diosa Ara and creator of the Labora Collective.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • November 12, 2025

Chapter 13: From Pain to Purpose

Transforming Personal Pain into a Purposeful Mission for Systemic Change in Healthcare

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • October 24, 2025

Chapter 5: The Devaluation of Black Life

Exploring the systemic devaluation of Black lives within the medical profession and its implications for patient care

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • October 20, 2025

Chapter 3: The Culture of "Human First"

Examining the Paradox of “Human First” in a Flawed Healthcare System

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • October 7, 2025

The Moment Everything Changed: Why Violence Against Women Is More Urgent Than Ever

Addressing the Urgent Crisis of Violence Against Women Across Diverse Communities

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 26, 2025

Issue 9: The Heart of Pleasure

How Emotional Safety Enables Physical Response

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 25, 2025

The Gender Divide: From Misogyny to Mobilization—The Global Stakes of 2025

While the United States once helped shape the international consensus around gender equality, it has increasingly become both a battleground and a broker in the rise of a global anti-gender movement.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 19, 2025

Ten Rules for Liberals Who Want to Actually Win: A Messaging Manifesto 📢

How to Build a Coalition That Can Finish What Reconstruction Started

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 18, 2025

The Gender Divide: Why Power Still Punishes Women in Public Life

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 16, 2025

The Gender Divide: How the Global Economy Exploits Women’s Labor

Labor, Wealth, and the Gendered Economy 💵

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 11, 2025

The Gender Divide: Global Fault Lines in Reproductive Freedom

The state of maternal health worldwide reflects how societies value women’s lives—not just rhetorically, but in concrete investment, infrastructure, and political will.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 7, 2025

A Mother’s Fever Vigil

An Introduction

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 4, 2025

The Gender Divide: Who Controls the Female Body—and at What Cost?

Reproductive Autonomy and the Politics of the Body

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • September 1, 2025

Why We Don’t Block People?

People sometimes ask, “Why don’t you just block them?”

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 28, 2025

The Gender Divide: Rights on Paper, Control in Practice

When we talk about women’s legal rights, we are referring to the foundational protections and entitlements that enable autonomy and participation in society.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 21, 2025

The Gender Divide: Are Women’s Rights Being Rolled Back Globally?

For centuries, women around the world have organized, advocated, and resisted to secure greater autonomy, equality, and dignity.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 21, 2025

Part 1: Breaking the Silence—Understanding Substance Use in Pregnancy

Series: More Than One Life: Navigating Substance Use Disorder in Pregnancy

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 19, 2025

Introducing the Diosa Ara Team: Celebrating Community, Leadership, and Impact

Introducing the Inspiring Team Behind Diosa Ara: Champions of Storytelling and Reproductive Justice

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • August 15, 2025

🚨 Diosa Ara Is More Than Headlines: It’s the Future of Women’s Health

Dr. Yamicia Connor outlines a comprehensive strategy for enhancing women's health and reproductive justice through actionable content, community support.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 25, 2025

Black Maternal Mental Health Week

Your Go-To Resource Guide

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 24, 2025

🟥 States That Invalidate or Override Advance Directives During Pregnancy

As of the most recent national review (based on statutes, not case law), the following 12 states have laws that explicitly void a pregnant person’s advance directive:

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 21, 2025

Sex Is Political. Always Has Been.

If it feels like sex is getting harder to talk about, you're not imagining it.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 10, 2025

Embracing Joy: A Pathway to Connection and Liberation in Women's Health

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 2, 2025

This Should Never Have Happened

What the case of Adriana Smith reveals about medicine, law, and the silent dangers pregnant women still face

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 23, 2025

Let’s Build Together: A New Conversation on Sexuality & Parenting

It’s okay to turn off the news.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • June 18, 2025

Who Is Yamicia Connor—and Why Your Support Matters?

💖 Thank You for Believing Before the World Caught On

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • May 6, 2025

Lactation Consultants vs. Pediatricians: Who Should You See for Breastfeeding Help?

Breastfeeding isn’t just a way to feed our babies; it’s an act loaded with emotion, cultural significance, and sometimes, sheer struggle.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • April 24, 2025

Birth Control in Uncertain Times: Why You Shouldn’t Wait Another Day

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • April 17, 2025

When Your Water Breaks Early: What Happens Next?

You’re just over six months pregnant.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • April 16, 2025

Postpartum Belly Binding: Tradition or Science?

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • April 10, 2025

Listening to the Unheard: The Critical Importance of Fetal Movement Awareness

Introduction: The Silent Tragedy of Stillbirth

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • April 3, 2025

Advocating for Yourself in the Healthcare System: A Survival Guide

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 20, 2025

Black Americans Will Suffer, but White America Is at Risk of Losing Its Very Soul

In these uncertain times, we all feel fear—fear for our future, for our families, for our financial security.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 18, 2025

We Lost the Message. Now It’s Time to Change the Strategy

Let’s be honest with ourselves: we’ve lost.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 14, 2025

🚨 The Reality of Giving Birth in a Crisis—What You Need to Know 🚨

🏥 Hospitals are closing, doctors are leaving, and restrictions are increasing.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 11, 2025

Pregnant & Over 30? These 10 Tests Help Keep You & Your Baby Healthy

Pregnancy is an exciting journey, but as you get older, your risks shift.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 6, 2025

🚨 What If You Need Emergency Pregnancy Care—But Can’t Get It?

🚨 What If You Need Emergency Pregnancy Care—But Can’t Get It?

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 4, 2025

The Imperative of Embracing Our Power: Reflections on Health Equity, Social Justice, and Resilience

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • March 4, 2025

Introducing In Her Name: Exposing the Cost of Control

Hi everyone,

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 27, 2025

How to Prepare for an Emergency with an Infant

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 21, 2025

The Crisis of Preterm Birth in Black Women – And Why It’s Getting Worse

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 20, 2025

🚨 Diabetes in Pregnancy: What You NEED to Know to Reduce Your C-Section Risk

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 19, 2025

Pre-Eclampsia Increases Your 10-Year Heart Disease Risk—What You Need to Know

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 17, 2025

10 Things Every Pregnant Person Needs to Do in Times of Political Unrest

“If things get worse, will you and your baby be safe?

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 10, 2025

Postpartum Love – Navigating Relationships After Baby

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 6, 2025

Mad at Elon? You Should Be Fucking Furious at the Entire System of Venture Capital and Private Equity That Created Him—And Countless Others Just Like Him.

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 5, 2025

Perinatal Infection Month: Protecting Moms & Babies from Hidden Threats

🚨 Did you know? Perinatal infections are a leading cause of complications for both moms and babies, yet many are preventable with the right care.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 4, 2025

February is International Prenatal Infection Prevention Month: Safeguarding Mother and Child 🦠🩺🤰

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 2, 2025

Concerns

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • February 1, 2025

Diosa Ara Updates!

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • January 24, 2025

"Hard Life" ≠ Discrimination

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • January 8, 2025

The Silent Struggle: Cardiomyopathy, Severe Preeclampsia, and the Invisible Obstacles Moms Face

Imagine being a new mom—your body recovering from the seismic event of childbirth, your heart and blood pressure teetering on the edge of crisis—and the health system you turn to for help missing crucial warning signs.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • November 22, 2024

Stepping Into True Leadership

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • October 27, 2024

The principled vote

Women's Health: Empowered Care, Informed Choices delivers evidence-based guidance on obstetrical and gynecological care, focusing on medications, clinical recommendations, reproductive justice, and maternal health outcomes.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 31, 2023

From Corner Office to Cradle: Gearing Up for Motherhood After an Accomplished Career

Motherhood.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 27, 2023

"Unnecessary Losses: How Many Black Women Must Die for Maternal Health Reforms?"

The loss of any mother is a profound tragedy that leaves an indelible mark on those left behind.

Yamicia Connor, MD, PhD, MPH • July 26, 2023

Diosa Ara: Revolutionizing Women's Health Through Science, Equity, and Empowerment

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Diosa Ara, a visionary consulting firm and concierge medical practice focused on women's health.