Pillowy bellies and engorged breasts: Mothercare’s ad and the pleasure of post-birth bodies

The company’s new campaign features realistic, joyful images of women. Does this mark the fightback against the casual body-shaming of mothers?

Coming in at No 6 on the list of “Shocking things about having a baby that no *$&*%er ever told you beforehand” (after “You will bleed for up to six weeks”, but before “You will become public property”) is: “Having a baby will fundamentally change your body.” So praise where it’s due to the team behind a new Mothercare advertising campaign, Body Proud Mums, which has created 10 images of beautiful, diverse, joyful and – yes – real women with their babies, without getting all Dove about it.

Flaunting – to use the correct tabloidese – pillowy bellies, engorged breasts, scars, stretch marks, fading linea nigras and triumphant smiles, the people in the campaign represent a salve against all the casual body shaming about “snapping back”. There is no airbrushing, just some bodies (in – don’t flip out – leggings and bras) that have given birth.

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2tCRGM3

Concerns over birthing options as NHS shuts midwife-led centres

Trusts say midwives needed in hospitals, as critics argue women’s right to choose under threat

They are places where birth balls, water pools and attentive midwives help women have their baby in a calm atmosphere without doctors intervening medically in the process of delivery.

But NHS chiefs have sparked controversy by shutting eight birth centres in England, prompting criticism that pregnant women are being denied the choice of place of birth that all have been promised.

Related: Left in the lurch: mothers-to-be devastated as maternity scheme ends

Related: Blood, sweat and faeces: why doulas aren’t just for wealthy women like Meghan

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2GBb6bz

I’m pregnant again – time to rest, and field a stream of very personal questions | Hadley Freeman

People seem to think the usual boundaries don’t apply

So I’m pregnant. Yes, again. That is my answer to what I’ve discovered is the most common response to this news: “You’re pregnant again?” It’s true, I do already have two toddlers and, as David Sedaris writes in his wonderful essay about families, Now We Are Five, “One or two [children] seemed reasonable, but anything beyond that struck me as outrageous.” I actually agree with this, and it seems many others do – even more strongly. “You’re having another? Why would you do that?” one person demanded to know when I told her.

As well as my two children, I’ve had the odd abortion and miscarriage, so this is not my first time on the pregnancy rodeo. And what I’ve learned in my, shall we say, full-spectrum experience is that people say weird and thoughtless things. We all do, all the time: I’ve probably said 10 strange things since breakfast, myself.

Related: Women aren't meant to talk about miscarriage. But I've never been able to keep a secret

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2E2RgVj

Blood, sweat and faeces: why doulas aren’t just for wealthy women like Meghan

The Duchess of Sussex is right to hire a doula. I liked mine so much that I retrained to become one

Eyebrows have been raised at news that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have hired a doula. I’m no princess but I made the same decision 10 years ago. The practical and emotional support I received made my start to motherhood so positive that I retrained as a doula myself.

Doulas are experienced lay people, taking on a non-medical role and often getting to know a family over many months. The work is intense and rewarding: from helping a woman plan her second birth after previous trauma, to answering a tearful and exhausted parent’s call at 3am.

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2RDGUP5

Poison and the papers: why tabloids are obsessed with Meghan ‘flaunting’ her bump

The Duchess of Sussex was once welcomed as a breath of fresh air. Now the media accuse her of ‘virtue signalling’ by touching her stomach

That Meghan Markle. She is doing pregnancy all wrong. Alert the foetus police (otherwise known as the popular press) to pore over the ways in which she is “flaunting” her baby bump. Yes, this is 2019 and the shaming of a pregnant woman’s body is dressed up as commentary and vague concern. Apparently, she touches her pregnant belly, cradles it and strokes it as pregnant women do. Maybe I am guessing just as much as everyone else, but perhaps she does it because she is on public display and she feels protective and a bit vulnerable.

She is not allowed to have those feelings, though, because her job is to breed in captivity. The Duchess of Sussex is public property as far as the media are concerned. Pregnant women will often tell you that complete strangers tell them how to behave. Complete strangers also refuse to offer pregnant women seats on trains or buses, but that’s another issue. Meghan, who was “welcomed” into the royal family in a mood of self-congratulatory “tolerance” (aren’t we wonderful for liking a beautiful woman of mixed heritage?), has been shoved back into her place since she returned from honeymoon. She is uppity (ie non-white) and is said to be feuding with vanilla Kate and even the late Diana. She is that much of a witch.

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2TsqQBl

Making Britain the best country to give birth in? Not likely, say abandoned mothers-to-be

A midwifery plan held up as a template for future NHS care has suddenly closed

With her first baby due in a few weeks, Gemma Ricketts had made careful plans for a home birth, helped by a midwife she had come to know and trust during her pregnancy. A private maternity service called Neighbourhood Midwives, funded by the NHS, had offered her and many others exactly the kind of attention that was last month trumpeted by Matt Hancock, the health secretary, as he set out plans to make Britain “the best place in the world to give birth” – personalised, continuous care by a named midwife and greater choice for the expectant mother when planning her delivery.

So when she received an email out of the blue telling her that Neighbourhood Midwives, which operated in Walthamstow, north-east London, was closing down with eight days’ notice, Ricketts was shocked and distressed. The 33-year-old is one of scores of heavily pregnant women who have been left in the lurch. Many have been advised to sort out alternative care themselves, and little information has been offered about why the scheme has ended so abruptly. Nine midwives have lost their jobs.

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2UyyvOH