Pregnancy and low self-esteem have put a stop to our sex life

It has been eight months since I gave birth, but I don’t miss sex

My partner and I had a fulfilling sex life for years, and then I fell pregnant. Our sex life began to dwindle due to morning sickness and me finding it hard to accept my body shape – I’ve always struggled with self-esteem. Our baby is now eight months old and we both thought I would have returned to “normal” by now, but I’m not convinced I miss sex all that much.

Your concern is very common and understandable; you want to take care of your baby and be as sexually invested as you were pre-pregnancy. At this point in your life as a mother, however, the two roles are mutually exclusive, so stop putting so much pressure on yourself. The reasons for your lack of libido are natural and normal, and it is important that both you and your partner understand that. Hormonal changes may still be playing a part, and the exhaustion you are experiencing as a new mother is bound to turn you off. These things are transient.

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Plumpton High Babies: 10 Years On – how a teacher changed lives for pregnant teenagers

Glenn Sargeant was the principal a generation of girls trusted to support them through pregnancy and help them stay at school

If you found out you were pregnant at the age of fifteen, would you trust your high school principal enough to tell him first?

It sounds unlikely, but for many girls at Plumpton High in Sydney’s western suburbs, this was their reality – and the remarkable man they placed their trust in was Glenn Sargeant.

Related: Whose Line Is it Anyway? What to expect from the Australian iteration

Related: How Tasmania became the gothic muse of Australian film and TV

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3D embryo atlas reveals human development in unprecedented detail

Digital model will aid vital research, offering chance chance to explore intricate changes occurring in the first weeks of life

The beautiful and otherworldly development of the human embryo has been revealed in unprecedented detail in an interactive three-dimensional atlas.

The digital models, built by a team of scientists in the Netherlands, took around 45,000 hours to produce and offer researchers an unparalleled glimpse into the first eight weeks of human development.

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The woman who showed me how difficult it is to be pregnant and poor

She was homeless, isolated, vulnerable and completely alone. Every day people walked past her and ignored her

Last year, I met a homeless woman who was sleeping rough in a busy port near Athens. She was isolated, vulnerable, completely alone – and pregnant. Every day people walked past her, ignored her, tried to pretend she didn’t exist. She had no one to talk to and no idea what was happening to her body; she didn’t even know how long she had been pregnant for. She was terrified.

Last week, I noticed a wealthy-looking pregnant woman out walking with her husband near the same port. She was greeted with warm smiles from passersby. Strangers congratulated her or stopped to ask her about her pregnancy. She had a whole host of people to talk to about her transition into motherhood. Granted, she too was probably terrified, but she could take comfort in having a network of support surrounding her. She looked happy.

Related: Emily wanted to die when her son was taken. Nurses gave her a future

Related: A mother's world was transformed – and so was my career – all by a baby's birth

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One in 100 carries heart-condition gene

British researchers say 1% at risk of heart failure under abnormal stress, such as pregnancy or alcoholism

One in every 100 healthy people carry a faulty gene that could trigger a dangerous heart condition, scientists have found. Researchers at Imperial College London and the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre say 1% of the population are at risk from heart failure when the organ is placed under abnormal stress – such as through pregnancy or alcoholism – even if they appear otherwise healthy.

Related: Billion people have high blood pressure, mostly in poorer countries

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The New Man review – painfully intimate

A frank but unremarkable record by parents-to-be becomes profoundly moving when complications arise

British film-maker Josh Appignanesi turns the camera on himself and his wife Devorah to document their much-longed-for pregnancy. His candid introspection and self-interrogation strikes a chord, but doesn’t, at first, reveal anything particularly novel about impending parenthood. Then the pregnancy becomes complicated, the happiness is stalked by tragedy and the immense generosity of Appignanesi and his wife in sharing this most intimate of journeys becomes clear. Told simply through snatches of conversations with friends and family, and subtle sound design, this is a profoundly moving and revealing study of a life-changing event.

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Pregnant woman with learning difficulties should have caesarean, judge rules

Doctors can perform a caesarean section on a pregnant woman with learning difficulties who wants to give birth naturally at home, a judge has ruled after a hearing in a specialist court

Doctors can perform a caesarean section on a pregnant woman with learning difficulties who wants to give birth naturally at home, a judge has ruled after a hearing in a specialist court.

Mr Justice Baker concluded that a caesarean would be in the woman’s best interests after analysing her case at a public hearing in the court of protection in London, where judges consider issues relating to people who might lack the mental capacity to make decisions.

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IVF clinics misleading couples about success rate, ACCC finds

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says clinics are not adequately disclosing and quantifying data

Several major IVF clinics in Australia have been misleading couples about their success rate, an investigation by the Australian consumer watchdog has found.

Earlier this year the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched a review of website content from all major Australian IVF clinics and found some made success rate comparisons without adequately disclosing and quantifying the data used to make the claims.

Related: Australians will pay the price for dominance of big companies, says ACCC chief

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New man becomes new dad – the very hard way

About to become a father for the first time, film director Josh Appignanesi turned the camera on himself and his pregnant wife. But what started as a light-hearted project suddenly turned very serious

Devorah Baum is having a baby; her husband, Josh Appignanesi, is making a film about her having a baby. Or to be more precise, Josh’s film is about what he feels about the pregnancy: because it’s hard work, this pregnancy lark, for Josh. While Devorah is hoping against hope that, after three years of fertility treatment, the couple really are going to become parents, Josh is doing the really difficult bit of pregnancy: he’s having a full-on, no-holds-barred existential crisis. On camera.

How is it for a man in the 21st century when his partner is pregnant? History has changed everything: Stone Age Josh would have gone out hunter-gathering, prepared a safe nest, fought off intruders and brought back food. Modern-day Josh is sitting in his kitchen while his wife and her girlfriends shriek with delight at news of the conception; and then the further bit of news, which is that there are in fact two heartbeats, not one. He is looking very, very scared. What does pregnancy mean for a man in the 21st century? Josh isn’t the main earner. Devorah is the one with a job; Josh is the freelance, and right now he’s the freelance with no work. These were, in fact, the circumstances that led to the project. “Josh thought he was going to make a romcom in Italy,” says Devorah, when we meet at their house in west London. “And he said, if it falls through I’ll just have to make a film about us. And suddenly it did fall through, and there he was making this film about us.”

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I donate 10 litres of breast milk a week

Breast milk is often the only thing a very sick or premature baby can tolerate. The thought of helping other tiny babies and their worried mums meant a lot to me

Ihave never breastfed any of my three daughters. When I had my first daughter, Mekayla, in South Africa 10 years ago, no one expected me to breastfeed, including my consultant, who said that using formula was just as good.

My attitude changed when I miscarried twins in 2012. Losing them was so hard and even though I know I couldn’t have done anything to prevent the miscarriage, it made me determined to do anything I could to help my children.

Related: Experience: I donated half my liver to my father

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French mothers don’t suffer from bladder incontinence. And nor should you | Gillian Harvey

Unlike Nadia Sawalha, I am a stranger to urinary accidents, even after four vaginal births – because I’ve had my pelvic floor electronically re-educated

This morning, my three-year-old daughter uttered seven words that fill many mothers with dread: “Mummy, can you come on the trampoline?”

As a mother of five children, having been through four vaginal births, an episiotomy, and natural twin labour (with one breech) – and having had more stitches than Frankenstein’s monster – I should be no stranger to the world of embarrassing leaks and incontinence pads. After all, an estimated one in three women suffer from bladder incontinence, a condition that can come about due to weakened pelvic floor muscles after childbirth.

Related: Incontinence: a common problem for female runners

Why in the UK are we encouraged by adverts to accept incontinence pads as inevitable?

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