内容摘要：, along with worker shortages and declining birth rates. More than half of rural hospitals have stopped offering labor and delivery services, another recent analysis from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform showed. That can lead to longer travel times and a

, along with worker shortages and declining birth rates. More than half of rural hospitals have stopped offering labor and delivery services, another recent analysis from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform showed. That can lead to longer travel times and a

And on New York’s Lower East Side, the recently opened Bar Miller restaurant serves its omakase menu on the colorfully glazed ceramic slabs and plate bowls of local artisans Helen Levi and FeFo Studio.“Chefs are telling me they use beautifully patterned plates to help tell their stories,” says Ram, of Food & Wine. “A vintage plate style might reiterate that a chef was influenced by a parent or grandparent’s cooking.”

Some playful patterns put the design on just one side of the plate. Others evoke nature, like Fortessa’s swirling Cloud Terre and Northern Lights collections.Still others favor modern art. In Olhao, Portugal, David Pimentel and Arren Williams created Casa Cubista, named for the town’s Cubist-style buildings. The buzzy brand has handmade plates with bold swaths of glaze, colored dips and graphic abstracts.Mud Australia has matte-finish ceramic pieces in soft, dreamy hues with names like pistachio, duck egg, mist and blossom.

At London’s Kitchen Theory food design lab, chef Jozef Youssef and his team have done surveys of how the color of a dish affects a diner’s perception of the plated food.Their findings: Dishes served on red plates were thought to be sweeter, making them ideal for desserts. Yellow plates seemed to make fruit dishes look especially appetizing. Blue and green? These plates were said to make dishes appear healthier.

New York-based writer Kim Cook covers design and decor topics regularly for The Associated Press. Follow her on Instagram at @kimcookhome.

For more AP Lifestyles stories, go toORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Midwife Jennie Joseph touched Husna Mixon’s pregnant belly, turned to the 7-year-old boy in the room with them and asked: “Want to help me check the baby?”

With his small hand on hers, Joseph used a fetal monitor to find a heartbeat. “I hear it!” he said. A quick, steady thumping filled the room.It was a full-circle moment for the midwife and patient, who first met when Mixon was an uninsured teenager seeking prenatal care halfway through her pregnancy with the little boy. Joseph has been on a decades-long mission to usher patients like Mixon safely into parenthood through a nonprofit that relies on best practices she learned in Europe, a place that experts say

“I consider maternal health to be in a state of emergency here,” said Joseph, a British immigrant. “It’s more than frustrating. It’s criminal.”The Biden administration,