Dont judge Robbie Williams for live-tweeting his little angels birth | Ally Fogg

Theres an awful lot of hanging around involved in childbirth, and Ayda Field didnt seem to mind, so whats the problem?

Any fathers or fathers-to-be who have sat through the ritual of antenatal classes should be well versed in the litany of dos and donts we are expected to observe in the final crucial hours leading up to the birth. Do be patient and understanding. Dont get in the way of the midwife. Do be prepared to offer lots of backrubs and massages. Dont pop to the pub for a couple of hours to watch the match, that kind of thing. I dont recall anyone telling me not to live blog the whole messy business to 2.3 million Twitter followers, but then Im not Robbie Williams.

Over the course of 24 hours yesterday, Williams shared about a dozen photos and videos, mostly about 20 seconds long, of him and his wife, the actor Ayda Field, goofing around in the delivery suite. The eighth and final video shows the two of them happily and proudly announcing the birth of their second child, as yet unnamed, but a healthy 8lb 2oz boy.

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'Stop singing Frozen!': Robbie Williams sings as wife gives birth video

Robbie Williams has uploaded a video of himself singing Let it Go from the Disney film Frozen as his wife goes through labour. Visibly in pain, Ayda Field eventually tells him to 'stop singing Frozen!'. The singer tweeted his way through the birth and liveblogged and uploaded videos to his YouTube page. Field gave birth to a baby boy Continue reading...



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High-fliers have more babies, according to study

Growing wealth divide allows career women who can afford childcare to have families, say US economists

It has long been considered a fact of modern life that highly educated women have fewer children. Received wisdom has it that women with university degrees go on to pursue careers and often end up starting their families later than other women. As a result they tend to have fewer children than average.

However, a study to be published in the Economic Journal suggests that this view no longer holds true, and that there has been a significant increase in the fertility rates of highly educated women in the last three decades.

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Three stories of how digital payments are changing healthcare delivery

Projects from Pakistan to Tanzania are showing how mobile money is facilitating both access to finance and to healthcare

According to a 2013 USAid report, public health schemes rely heavily on cash: to make payments for medical services, to pay health workers, to buy drugs at pharmacies. Yet it is becoming increasingly apparent that digital payments in rural, remote areas settings are quicker, easier, and safer. The likelihood of fraud drops as fewer hands are needed to transfer the money. And the transaction costs decline, making it cheaper for providers to reach rural populations. This translates into scale - a sought after goal in most public health projects - enabling organisations to cover larger areas with their services.

A digital trail also allows for easy data collection, auditing, and transparency, all of which is essential in health programming. Ultimately, USAid suggests programmes could create sustainable business models, becoming less dependant on donor funding and build relationships with new corporate partners. But what is the evidence?

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More than 1,000 pregnant women could lose Newstart under budget plan

Pregnant women not exempt from proposal to take unemployed people under 30 off income support for six months at a time

More than 1,000 unemployed pregnant women could be stripped of Newstart for months at a time under the governments planned earn or learn policy, new figures have revealed.

Pregnant women are not exempt from the governments proposal to take unemployed people under 30 off income support for six months at a time, a budget measure which is likely to be blocked in the Senate.

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Sad state of support for new families | @guardianletters

Your report (£8bn cost of mental illness in maternity, 20 October) made me very sad. I have been involved for 13 years in Home Start, a charity that supports young families, many of which suffer from postnatal depression, by supporting them with trained volunteers in their homes until they feel able to cope. Our small branch supported 68 families with 159 children last year. However, earlier this year, our funding from the county council and health authority ceased after 17 years and weve been unable to attract other funding to continue supporting young families in this area. We have been turned down by some funders as we are not considered a deprived area. We still have a team of trained volunteers and referrals from health visitors but are unable to respond without funding. Government and local authority policies are shortsighted and by cutting costs this way create more problems.

Susan Eden

Denford, Northamptonshire

As is suggested in the Maternal Mental Health Alliances report, the cost of £8bn a year is likely to be an underestimate with considerably greater expenditure if the calculations include the cost of educational intervention and support. Children who, through no fault of their own, do not experience good care in the early stages of life very often later require specialised staff and resources in schools. In over 25 years of working in some of the most deprived parts of the north-east, Ive witnessed the disastrous effects of poverty and poor care on childrens wellbeing and education. As you also report in the same issue (Council asks: what would you cut?) the effects of austerity (aka extreme poverty) on the capacity of key agencies to make a difference is increasing. Thus, at the present rate we should, sadly, be expecting an above-inflation rate of increase on the £8bn already cited. When will we start to join up the dots?

Dr Simon Gibbs

Reader in educational psychology, programme director for initial training in educational psychology, and head of education, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, University of Newcastle

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Underwater pregnancy in pictures

Florida-based photographer Adam Opriss latest project features pregnant women underwater, giving them the appearance of mermaids

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By removing photos of childbirth, Facebook is censoring powerful female images | Milli Hill

Birth is a fundamental feminist issue right now - womens bodies should not be sanitised. Facebook should let us see it as it is

If I say a woman giving birth, what is the first image that comes into your head? Give me details: is she upright or on her back, covered or naked, calm or in distress? What are her surroundings? Who attends her and are they touching her? Who is delivering her baby?

In western culture we have a certain set of presumptions about birth that are so tightly set out they would feel restrictive, if only we could notice them. Like a swaddled baby, we feel the comfort of the familiar, and often do not have a reference point for any other way of being. So birth is difficult, painful, to be feared. It is necessary to be on our backs so that our attendants, who understand the process better than we do, can see. It takes place in hospital. There is machinery, a sense of panic. The first hands to touch the baby are those of the expert attendants, for it is they who deliver it.

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Judge approves caesarean for mentally ill woman

Woman, who is in her 30s and suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, had childlike vision of babies popping out

A judge has given doctors the go-ahead to perform a caesarean section on a mentally-ill woman who is 39 weeks pregnant.

Mrs Justice Roberts said on Tuesday she was satisfied that a planned caesarean section was in the womans best interests and satisfied that the woman did not have the mental capacity to make decisions about treatment.

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Gaps in mental health care for new mothers cost UK £8bn a year study

Maternal Mental Health Alliance says NHS would need to spend £337m a year to bring care up to recommended levels

Substandard mental health care for pregnant women and new mothers is creating long-term costs of more than £8bn every year, according to a pioneering study of the effects of maternal depression, anxiety and other illnesses.

The report, produced by the London School of Economics and the Centre for Mental Health charity, represents the first time academics have sought to quantify not just the direct economic impact on affected mothers, but the effect over decades on their childrens prospects, both in terms of development in the womb and during the crucial early years.

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Postnatal depression: I went downhill very fast

Joanna Friend was given tranquillisers and antidepressants, and spent a week on a psychiatric unit when she relapsed

Joanna Friend, from Woodbury, near Exeter, Devon, first experienced depression and anxiety five days after the birth of her first son: I started feeling an intense anxiety, and I went downhill very fast I was lying on the floor crying and asking for people to help me. It got so bad a friend said I needed to call the mental health crisis team.

With no specialist care available Friend, now 36, was given tranquillisers and antidepressants, which required her to stop breastfeeding. After six months she was able to go off medication, only to relapse 18 months later, when she became pregnant with her younger son.

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More than half of babies born to women over 30 for first time, figures show

ONS statisticians cite increased female participation in labour force as one reason for trend in women delaying childbirth

More than half of babies in England and Wales are born to women aged at least 30, according to the latest figures.

Just over 50% of the 698,512 children born last year had mothers who were 30 or older, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, the first time since records began in 1938.

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My baby will be mixed race. So why did I automatically think of him as 'black'? | Victoria Bond

I picked a black baby to represent my unborn child on a cake because of my own adherence to the one-drop rule

My 87-year-old grandmother has a very specific way of saying the word black: she drags out the a and makes the k extra hard for an effect that drowns the c. Blaaaak out of my grandmothers mouth is an admonishment, not a color. Blaaaak out of my grandmothers mouth travels a step beyond being a pejorative to having the hair-raising resonance of a word that damns as well as describes damnation itself.

Blaaaak out of my grandmothers mouth is a curse.

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Lets talk about miscarriage

Women and men often feel reluctant to discuss what is a distressing and bewildering - but far from rare - experience, writes Claire Daly in the run-up to International Baby Loss Awareness Day

One in five pregnancies are thought to end in a miscarriage, yet though it is commonplace, such a loss can be emotionally paralysing. Many women and men feel reluctant to talk about what is often a distressing and bewildering but far from rare experience.

After I wrote an article for the Guardian about a miscarriage I had in 2013 I was shocked at the scale of the response. Everyone wants to talk about, but no one wants to be the one to bring it up, one woman told me.

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Pregnant women shouldnt be policed by media hype on binge drinking | Lola Okolosie

If women are seeking abortions because of fears they have damaged their foetus, it shows how ingrained the message is that were unfit to control our pregnant bodies

The day before I discovered I was pregnant with my son, Id shared nearly two bottles of red wine with a good friend. It was more than three glasses or six units; Id thus been binge drinking.

As the faint blue line of the white stick deepened in intensity, my mind raced back. Visions of midweek drinks followed by longer weekend sessions filtered through, and I was mortified. Weeks had gone by where I was ignorant of my pregnancy. Had I caused the foetus irrevocable harm? Luckily for me, I had friends whod been in exactly my position. My worries were assuaged. I was told it would be fine; rather than fretting, I should enjoy this new reality.

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Surgeons behind womb transplant: 'it was like having your own child' - video

The surgical team behind the first successful womb transplant say they are delighted with the result. The Swedish mother who received the womb gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Vincent. 'No one could really believe it,' says Liza Johannesson, one of the surgeons who helped carry out the procedure. 'It was like having your own child' Continue reading...



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Womb transplant birth worth the risk, says mother

First woman to give birth from transplanted uterus says pregnancy option was perfect idea despite lack of guarantees

The first woman to have given birth from a transplanted womb has said the reward made the risks of the procedure worthwhile.

The 36-year-old Swede and her partner have named the baby boy Vincent, which means to win in Latin. The mother learned at the age of 15 that she was born without a womb a condition that affects one in 4,500 women.

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British woman dies after botched caesarean in France

Public prosecutor says the Belgian anaesthetist, who has been charged with manslaughter, appeared drunk during operation

An anaesthetist has been charged with manslaughter after a British woman died following a botched caesarean operation to deliver her first child.

The baby boy was delivered safely last Friday night, but the 28-year-old mother, who was living in France, was rushed to hospital in a coma from which she never recovered.

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Designer babies? It looks like racism and eugenics to me | Julie Bindel

The case of a lesbian couple suing a sperm bank over their black donor has laid bare the ethical minefield of the gayby boom

The designer baby trend has been laid bare with the case of a lesbian couple who are suing a sperm bank after one of them became pregnant with sperm donated by an African American instead of the white donor they had chosen. The birth mother, Jennifer Cramblett, was five months pregnant in 2012 when she and her partner learned that the Midwest Sperm Bank near Chicago had selected the wrong donor. Cramblett said she decided to sue to prevent the sperm bank from making the same mistake again, and is apparently seeking a minimum of $50,000 (£30,000) in damages.

I understand concerns about mixed-race babies being raised by white parents in white neighbourhoods. Suffering racism at school or in the streets and having to go home to a white family that cannot properly understand or offer informed support can make it significantly worse. But those that make use of commercial services in order to reproduce should be prepared to move house if something unexpected arises. After all, a child can be born with a disability that requires care that is unavailable locally.

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Should egg-freezing be available to all women? | Poll

With many women delaying pregnancy then subsequently having problems conceiving, some experts are recommending the option of early egg freezing to all. Is this a sensible solution? Continue reading...



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Low postpartum oxytocin levels linked to poor mother-daughter bond

Australian study finds women with troubled relationship with their mother may struggle to bond with their own children

Women who have trouble bonding with their mothers are more likely to suffer from low levels of the hormone oxytocin after they give birth, leaving them struggling to bond with their own children, landmark Australian research has found.

It is the first time a link has been made between oxytocin, bonding and separation anxiety, a condition where people constantly check on their loved ones and worry something bad might happen to them.

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