New mum? It's a great time to start running

A runner, coach and grandmother minds the babies while the new mums run – and says motherhood improves fitness, lung capacity and efficiency

New and old mums have been running into the headlines at full tilt recently. First came 92-year-old Harriette Thompson, the oldest marathon finisher on record and a grandmother of ten. At a rather brisker pace, Jessica Ennis chested the tape to qualify for next year’s Olympics. The words “inspirational” and “supermum” haven’t been bandied about with such abandon since Jo Pavey won gold in Glasgow and earned herself a million new Twitter followers from the Mumsnet generation in the process.

We mothers and grandmothers in Lycra have come a long way. Although we were banned for years from competing in strenuous distance events in case our wombs dropped out, once we showed we could channel the same strength it takes to push out a baby into athletic prowess, mums of steel started to stride into the sports pages.

We advise women not to start classes too soon after the birth – most show up when the baby is a couple of months old

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Mother loses bid to use dead daughter's frozen eggs to give birth to grandchild

High court judge acknowledges daughter’s desire for children but rules that she had not given the required consent before she died of bowel cancer aged 28

A mother has lost her bid to use the frozen eggs of her dead daughter so she could give birth to a grandchild, after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence this was her late daughter’s wish.

The unnamed 59-year-old woman and her husband, 58 – whose daughter died from cancer aged 28 – had challenged a regulator’s refusal to allow them to transport the frozen eggs of their “only and much-loved child” to a US fertility treatment clinic.

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Pregnancy food: what you eat can affect your child for life

You might think it’s a time to put your feet up and inhale a tub of ice-cream, but eating healthily during those all-important nine months can stop your child becoming obese, and avoid mental-health and social issues

“Listen to your body,” is one of the most overused phrases in the pregnancy-vadvice market. And, actually, it’s really hard to ignore your body when you’re pregnant; it mutinies and starts ordering you about. In many ways this is good – forcing you to go to bed early, or eat enough protein. But, in the unnatural food landscape of today, in which irresistible unhealthy snacks are the easiest foods to come by, it can also be bad.

The first time I was pregnant, I signed up for a daily email with tips and information on the baby’s development. Occasionally, I’d receive a gentle reminder to snack on carrot sticks instead of cakes, and I would think: “Up yours, patronising email service – don’t you realise you’re talking to someone who makes her own sodding muesli?” Then I’d inhale an entire carton of ice-cream, which obviously needed replacing every 48 hours, as was surely the right of all weary pregnant women everywhere.

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Mother's diet before conception 'can affect child's lifelong risk of disease'

New study shows nutrition advice to adolescent girls before pregnancy could help avert preterm births, cancer and brain defects

A mother’s diet before conception can affect her unborn child’s genetic make-up and immune system, according to new findings with profound implications for policy and development work.

A report launched today by scientists at the Medical Research Council (MRC) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that a mother’s nutritional status at the time of conception can permanently change the function of a gene that influences her child’s immunity and cancer risks.

Related: Why everything you've been told about evolution is wrong

Related: Nine ways to tackle obesity and undernutrition

Related: Evening seminar: Is the development sector failing women?

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Texas abortion law ruling: Latinas more likely to avoid clinics and self-terminate

Low-income and ‘landlocked’ undocumented women may have difficulty accessing care in the state, stoking fears that self-induced abortions will increase

Fewer Latinas are seeking care at a dwindling number of Texas abortion clinics, amid fears that the amount of women attempting self-induced abortions may be rising, according to researchers and advocacy groups.

The warnings arrived in the aftermath of a federal appellate court decision on Tuesday to uphold the most restrictive provisions of a law that could leave the second-largest state in the US with as few as seven abortion clinics.

Related: Court upholds Texas abortion law that could leave state with only seven clinics

Related: Georgia woman faces murder charge for taking pill that allegedly killed fetus

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Non-invasive Down's syndrome test could be made available on NHS

Trials in London of test, which looks at foetal DNA in mothers’ blood, conclude it could be cost-effective as well as reducing risk of miscarriage

A non-invasive prenatal test for Down’s syndrome that reduces the risk of miscarriage and increases the detection of affected babies could be made available on the NHS.

A trial at Great Ormond Street hospital of the test, which looks at fragments of foetal DNA in the mother’s blood, suggests that the procedure could be cost-effective.

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Four years, 40 negative tests: why being young and infertile sucks

When Rebecca Seal decided at 28 she wanted a baby, she thought she was starting young. She and her partner never dreamed they’d need IVF. Wasn’t infertility an older person’s problem?

The doctor shuffled the papers holding our test results. I had just had the first of what would turn out to be many internal ultrasound scans and was feeling shaken by the brutal indignity of it: the stirrups and the dildo-shaped scanner. “Well, it looks like everything is fine,” he said. “Oh. Ah. No.” He pulled out one of the papers. “No. It’s very unlikely you’ll be able to conceive naturally.”

When I was 28, five years and 48 crushingly regular periods ago, I suddenly and desperately wanted a baby. Two of my closest friends announced they were pregnant and there it was, sharp and inescapable: jealousy. I wanted one, too. It was impractical timing – I was newly and precariously self-employed and the house I rented with my partner, Steve, was tiny – but there was no chance I could be rational. It felt primal and urgent and strange.

Three friends had babies and sent me photos. Unforgivably, I asked them to stop. They mistook my distance for disdain

My need to be a parent filled my thoughts; Steve wondered if he wanted children at all. We were both lonely

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I’m thinking of having a baby on my own

My mother is supportive but I worry what people will think. Annalisa Barbieri advises a reader

I am 36 and have been single for over a decade. Although I would like a partner, I am fairly happy (and definitely resigned) to singledom.

I am incredibly conscious that time is running out if I am going to have children. I always imagined that I would have met someone by now and that we would make the decision together, but I know now that this is unlikely. I am seriously considering going forward alone and becoming a single parent. 

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The ‘choices’ facing women who want children | Letters from Dr Geeta Nargund and others

Harriet Minter writes (2 June, theguardian.com), of my campaign to see fertility issues added to the secondary school curriculum, that “the last thing we need is more scaremongering”. I am delighted that my call for fertility education has provoked such a widespread response. But this storm of opinion must not cloud focus on the underlying facts, and we need to correct some misconceptions and inaccuracies in media reporting.

Harriet writes: “If you’re someone who is relatively fertile, your chances of having a baby in your 30s, or even your 40s, are not significantly lower than they would have been when you were younger.” This is inaccurate and references an article by Twenge in The Atlantic that itself misinterprets two important scientific papers. The first by Dunson and colleagues demonstrates significant reductions in a woman’s fertility with age. A second study by Rothman and colleagues shows that a couple’s fertility peaks around 30 years and at age 40 declines by approximately half with most of this decline attributable to the female partner. Both these complex academic studies clearly confirm the decline in fertility in women (and to a lesser extent men) over the age of 35.  

The conflicts and difficult choices for young women with career aspirations, and their potential employers, remain

As for natural childbirth, I sometimes reminded my patients that natural childbirth may involve natural selection

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Prepare pregnant women for bad health news from prenatal tests, doctors urged

Unexpected diagnosis of cancer and genetic problems is increasing as more women are tested, prompting calls for better information and counselling

Doctors are being urged to help pregnant women ready themselves for bad news about their health which can emerge accidentally from tests on their babies.

Modern prenatal tests can spot genetic problems in babies from fragments of their DNA that leak into the mother’s bloodstream. But the same tests can reveal unknown health problems in mothers themselves, from early stage cancer to genetic disorders.

Related: Dennis Lo: 'What we learned from the foetus is feeding into cancer detection'

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Pregnant women who exercise cut risk of diabetes, says study

The earlier in pregnancy women start exercising, the more benefit they gain, says report in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Women who exercise while pregnant cut their risk of becoming diabetic and are more likely to gain less weight than those who do nothing, according to a study that could see mothers-to-be being advised to be more active.

Expectant mothers who take moderate exercise can reduce by as much as 30% their chances of developing gestational diabetes mellitus, and by more if they do so throughout their pregnancy.

Related: Can you be pregnant and still be stylish?

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The fertility industry is one that sells hope – sometimes that hope is false

The latest headlines about fertility have predictably caused outrage. We need to ask why women feel they have to ‘delay’. Having a baby should be an achievable goal at any age

One thing’s for certain: media coverage of age and infertility is not much of an aphrodisiac. Unless you like having enforced reproductive sex at gunpoint to the ticking sound of a clock – which might be the average Boden catalogue subscriber’s idea of a turn-on (guilty), but is perhaps not so attractive to a single lady in her late 20s who is a long way off finding someone with whom she might want to have a takeaway, let alone a baby.

Screaming headlines from the weekend – “NHS Chief: Don’t Wait Until 30 to Have Baby” – are designed to evoke two responses: panic or anger. There’s no need for either, but there is something interesting going on here. Consultant gynaecologist Professor Geeta Nargund was trying to point out – not unreasonably – that the cost to the NHS of IVF treatments is rising steeply. Age-based infertility (rather than infertility that would exist regardless of age) is on the increase because it’s more socially acceptable, and indeed more possible, to delay motherhood than it was 30 years ago. This isn’t scaremongering, it is fact.

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South? Wild? What Kim and Kanye should call kid two, according to Twitter

After naming their first child North, will Kardashian and West stick with compass points – or should they move in a different direction?

The moment has come: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are expecting their second child, and in this moment I swear we are infinite.

The revelation was announced at the end of the Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ midseason finale, in which Kim is seen telling Khloe, “I just got the blood tests back, and I’m pregnant!” as part of a teaser clip. (Just in case you thought Sunday night TV had lost its sheen. And if you did, how dare you.)

Related: Kim Kardashian pregnant with second child

Possible names for Kim & Kanye's new kid: -South -New -Shallow -Wild Wild -Wicked Witch Of The -Fievel Goes -A Million Ways To Die In The

After naming their first baby North West Kim and Kanye are said to be looking for new baby names in another direction.

Paisley Road West for Kanye and Kim's new baby

I'm so excited that Kim Kardashian is pregnant with another meme.

No, Kim Kardashian won't name the next kid South West. That would be ridiculous. I'm thinking more like Mae West. Cornel West. WILD WEST.

Do you think South West will be a girl and boy or an airline? #KimKardashian

CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO HAD A KIM KARDASHIAN PREGNANCY JOKE DRAFTED YOU ARE THE TRUE STARS ENJOY YOUR MOMENT

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Why aren’t men in their 30s pressured to have kids? The answer isn’t biological … | Archie Bland

Over the weekend women in their 20s were again under pressure to conceive. But this debate isn’t about fertility so much as an outdated social conservatism

Here is an assertion with which you will be familiar. After 30, women’s fertility falls drastically. Their chances of conceiving naturally plummet, and they are left relying on IVF or adoption, or – worst of all – consigned to a childless life. These lonely women sit around their laughterless homes, pining for the burbling affection of the babies they denied themselves, and thinking: why did nobody tell me?

Those were the presumptions underpinning a widely read story in the Mail on Sunday, headlined NHS chief warns women not to wait until 30 to have baby. In the piece, consultant gynaecologist Professor Geeta Nargund – who is not, as far as I can tell, an NHS chief at all, but that’s by the by – warned younger women that if they didn’t get on with it, they could face “shock and agony”, “devastation and regret”, as well as placing a “costly and largely unnecessary burden on the NHS”. Those in the target demographic could be forgiven, reading these ominous words, for apologising profusely to society at large and immediately collaring a passing stranger for a bit of unprotected sex. The clock, after all, is ticking.

Related: All this fertility paranoia does women no good | Barbara Ellen

The implication is that if men haven’t made their mind up by their 40s they can always start again with a younger model

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