Criminalising pregnant women who drink is a ploy to restrict their freedom | Rebecca Schiller

If the UK apes the US and punishes pregnant women, we will be heading towards a dystopia akin to that in The Handmaids Tale



Alcohol abuse in pregnancy could become a crime

Margaret Atwoods 1985 novel The Handmaids Tale seems to have moved from fiction to prophecy, with news of a court case in England that could lead to the prosecution of women who drink alcohol while pregnant.

Nothing changes instantaneously, wrote Atwood, in a gradually heating bathtub, youd be boiled to death before you knew it. She was referring to the gradual deterioration of an imagined liberal society where an increasingly draconian state imposes laws on womens sexual, reproductive and basic human freedoms. Her prescience was startling.

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Baby born by emergency caesarean after mother dies in Gaza shelling

Doctors save newborn after woman who was eight months pregnant was buried by rubble at her home in Deir al-Balah

When the doctors gently pulled the tiny newborn from the womb in an emergency caesarean, her mother had already been dead for an hour.

Shayma al-Sheikh Qanan, 23, was eight months pregnant when an Israeli tank shell hit her home in the central Gaza strip town of Deir al-Balah, reducing it to rubble. She was left in a critical condition. Her husband, a local radio journalist, was also badly wounded.

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Mother could be forced to pay damages to child for drinking during pregnancy

Advice groups join forces in bid to combat ruling which they believe could criminalise the behaviour of pregnant women

An unprecedented court hearing to decide on the right of a child whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy to receive compensation could pave the way to the criminalisation of pregnant women's behaviour, according to legal papers lodged with the judge.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service and legal charity Birthrights have applied to address the court on the case. They believe the ruling could undermine women's freedom to make decisions for themselves while pregnant.

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The anti-abortion activists waging war on vulnerable women

US clinics now provide escorts for patients attending women's centres to protect them from militant protesters, whose tactics now threaten to infiltrate the UK

It's not yet 7 o'clock on a Saturday morning in New York and I'm confronted by a group of people standing in front of a nondescript doorway, waving four-foot high placards and shouting: "They murder babies here!" There are already a dozen anti-abortion protesters outside the clinic and the day has barely started.

Here to act as an "escort" ensuring patients, whether they are having abortions or not, enter the clinic safely I already feel intimidated. So, imagine that you're a woman who has miscarried and someone shouts at you: "Carrying babies in your uterus is a gift from God"; or imagine simply going to the doctor and being told you're "going to hell". Imagine being an African-American woman on your way to a women's health clinic and being surrounded by people screaming: "They want to kill black babies."Can you imagine how upsetting and emotionally traumatising that is for patients?

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20 best iPhone and iPad apps this week

Glow Nurture, Lingua.ly, Guardians of the Galaxy, Swords & Poker Adventures, Overcast, Shakespeare300 and more

It's time for our weekly roundup of the best new iPhone and iPad apps and games to have emerged on Apple's App Store.

As ever, prices are correct at the time of writing, but may have changed by the time you read this. (Free + IAP) means in-app purchases are used within the app.

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Questioning women with depression about having children isn't babying them | Hannah Jane Parkinson

Doctors are being encouraged to speak to women with depression about pregnancy risks. This is not intrusive it's necessary guidance

If there's one thing that people with experience of depression fear most in life, it's depression coming back. The thought of being dragged again into a moribund swamp of emptiness, ennui and self-hatred is terrifying. Depression often returns, so its handy to learn how to fend off the black dog before you find yourself staring at the back of its open throat and being knocked to the ground. It can take a hell of a long time to get up.

To this end, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) has issued new guidelines to GPs treating women with depression. It suggests doctors ask female patients whether or not they want children as a prelude to discussing the complications which can arise when women with depression or history of it become pregnant.

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Number of babies born falls by more than 4% in England and Wales

Office for National Statistics says welfare reforms may have influenced childbearing decisions as data coincides with average age for motherhood reaching 30 for first time

The number of babies born in England and Wales fell by 4.3% last year, the largest percentage annual drop for almost 40 years, and the average age of mothers has risen to 30 for the first time, new figures reveal.

Benefits changes, uncertainty about employment and restricted career and promotion opportunities because of temporary, part-time and zero-hour contracts, could be factors in the drop in live births, the Office for National Statistics says.

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Women are second-class citizens when pregnancy makes us potential criminals | Jessica Valenti

A world in which all women of child-bearing age are considered 'pre-pregnant' is the stuff of nightmares

Late in my pregnancy with my daughter, Layla, I had a glass of red wine every once in a while. And while I took prenatal vitamins, I'm sure I missed a day somewhere in there. I definitely absolutely, without-a-doubt ate more junk food than is recommended by most health organizations. Does that mean I should go to jail? It may sound ridiculous, but that's the very real slippery slope we're on, thanks to laws criminalizing pregnant women and treating their personhood as secondary to their pregnancy.

Earlier this month in Tennessee, 26-year-old new mother Mallory Loyola became the first person arrested under a new law that makes using narcotics while pregnant a criminal offense. Loyola is facing charges of assault against her fetus she was arrested two days following birth, after she allegedly tested positive for amphetamines.

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The pull of my daughter's phantom child still drags her down | Jane Green

We all agree she shouldn't get pregnant, but she tells people that she is, and posts pictures of babies on her Facebook page

Jess is due to have her contraception injection today. She has them every three months to prevent pregnancy and ensuring she has them is always a strain.

After much discussion I have established that she is seeing the nurse at 3pm. But then she calls me to say that the nurse could not get to work because of the rain. This is unlikely. It has rained, heavily, but people are getting to work. They usually do in the rain.

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I have struggled with depression and anxiety it doesn't have to be the end | Ariane Sherine

A former boyfriend attacked me nine years ago, destroying my mental health but I am no longer ashamed. I want people to know life can get better

Nine years ago I was newly pregnant when I was violently attacked by my boyfriend at the time. We were having an argument; he hit me in the face causing my ear to bleed, then clamped his hand over my mouth, suffocating me, and told me repeatedly that he would kill me. He said afterwards that the incident only lasted 20 seconds, but those 20 seconds were to change my whole life irrevocably.

It doesn't matter who he was. He could have been anyone. I don't want to identify him, but he was probably different to the man you're imagining: he was more than 10 years older than me, well-spoken, intellectual, ex-private school, cruel, abusive; he was also funny, smart, kind, affectionate, and I was deeply in love with him and thrilled to be carrying his baby. People are complex, and to demonise him and paint him in black and white doesn't make sense that isn't how real life works.

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Infant hospital visits down as fewer women smoke while pregnant

Australian medical study finds a 10.5% drop in the number of infants under a year old being re-admitted to hospital

A drop in the number of women who smoke while pregnant has helped push down the number of infants going into hospital, according to researchers.

A study of all 788,798 children born in New South Wales between 2001 and 2009, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, shows a 10.5% drop in the number of infants under a year old being re-admitted to hospital, from 18.4 per 100 births in 2001 to 16.5 in 2009.

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KGoal: introducing the fitness tracker for your vagina

Wearable technology conquers the final frontier with KGoal, a device to help women the world over exercise their pelvic floor muscles better

It can already stream the internet straight to your face, vibrate around your waist when you're slouching and track your health using only your wrist. Now, wearable technology is getting even more intimate and attempting to conquer the final frontier: the vagina.

Recently launched on Kickstarter, the KGoal Smart Kegel Trainer, produced by San Fransisco-based sexual health startup Minna Life, describes itself as a Fitbit for your vagina, an interactive device to guide, measure and track pelvic floor muscle exercise. It takes the form of a squeezable silicone pillow, connected to a smartphone app, that measures your clench strength and feeds the data back to a smartphone app via Bluetooth. It also has an internal motor for real time vibrational biofeedback.

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Mother who abandoned baby in park had severe depression, rules judge

Woman avoids custodial sentence but Birmingham court told dog finding newborn outdoors in carrier bag was 'stroke of luck'

A mother who abandoned her newborn daughter behind shrubs in a public park while suffering from post-natal depression wept as she avoided prison.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was on Thursday handed a six-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, at Birmingham crown court.

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Home-birthing pools recalled after baby falls ill with legionnaires' disease

NHS and Public Health England ban certain types of heated pool and question suppliers over safety precautions

Hired home-birthing pools across the country have been recalled and hire companies put under scrutiny after a baby born using one of the heated pools developed legionnaires' disease.

The NHS and Public Health England (PHE) have banned certain types of home-birthing pools until further notice, after the child who remains in hospital with severe pneumonia became unwell.

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