Giving them less has never worked.

Times are freaking hard, the US' bootstrap approach only works large scale for people who already have tons of innate support and are comfortable letting children suffer for their parents' problems.

Anyone who thinks there's not a causal link between poverty, drug use, child abuse, and mental illnesses is absolutely deluded. You do not solve drug problems by depriving them of more. You do not solve child abuse by drug addicts by punishing the drug users.

I'm not excusing what happened to this poor little girl, I'm not okay with anyone hurting a child, but I am arguing that punishing the adults who are in crisis is the same as punishing the child, and I am never okay hurting a kid.

Yup, because the research indicates that most children have worse outcomes when separated from their family. It's pretty devastating... But frankly, we should use that evidence to provide more supports to those families, so they have more of a chance of getting better. I know the narrative is they don't "deserve" help, but their children do.

okay, I'll clarify a bit further because no I don't:

He had me come in to an "urgent" appointment so he could make sure I didn't have pneumonia/was getting enough oxygen in my blood.

Once established that I was not in danger, just miserable, we have to accept that there are basically no safe medications for alleviating cough/colds in pregnancy. The only "acceptable" pain medication is acetaminophen, and it is now being linked to poor brain development (autism, ADHD), so it isn't recommended except to reduce fever, which I don't have.

Other medications have been linked to negative outcomes in animal trials, so they won't even try them on pregnant humans. Antibiotics are not recommended when it is probably viral, and even if it might have been bacterial, they are not recommended at my stage of pregnancy, again, unless my life/longterm health are at risk.

So what would you have my doctor do?

Oh of course he didn't say that. But like, what can he give me that won't risk the (wanted) fetus? It's tea with honey, cough drops, and mucinex... and trying to talk as little in my job... as a TEACHER.

I got one cold. Then started getting better, then got another damn cold. Went to the doctor and because I'm knocked up I got a "suck it up buttercup" so I've had horrible coughing for three weeks.