FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Recently learned you’re expecting a baby? Congratulations! This is an exciting time for your family. But you may also have questions about how to get care for yourself during and after your pregnancy. “‘Maternity care’ refers to the medical services related to pregnancy,” said Jeannine Pickrell, RN, director of Disease Management & Population Health at the Defense Health Agency. “It includes care before and after you have your baby, treatment of complications, and breastfeeding support.”

Charles Spivey came to Newport News, Virginia from North Carolina 40 years ago to work in the shipbuilding industry. For the last six years, he’s been president of United Steelworkers Local 8888. Their roughly 12,000 shipbuilders work for Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (HII) “There’s only one company in the world that can produce a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and that’s right here in the city where we do it,” he said. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro recently announced most of the Navy’s new ships are one to three years behind schedule, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the first Columbia-class submarines, and the next round of Virginia-class submarines produced in Newport News. Shipyards around the country have similar backlogs.

The two dry docks large enough to accommodate a big deck amphibious warship in San Diego, Calif., are currently occupied, complicating the repairs of USS Boxer (LHD-4), USNI News has learned. Boxer came back into port last week with one of its rudders damaged after leaving earlier this month on deployment. As of Friday, the Navy was assessing how to repair the rudder to allow the 45,000-ton capital ship to return to sea, a service official told USNI News. The service would prefer to fix the rudder underwater with the understanding that the replacement repair could take up to two to three weeks, USNI News previously reported.