French MPs approve IVF draft law for single women and lesbians

Controversial bill is Emmanuel Macron’s biggest social reform since he was elected in 2017

France’s lower house of parliament has approved a draft law to allow lesbians and single women to conceive children using donor sperm, a move that has set the stage for street protests next month.

At present, only heterosexual couples have the right to use medically assisted reproduction methods such as IVF and artificial insemination. Lesbians and single women who want to have children often travel abroad to fertility clinics for treatment, a situation they say is discriminatory.

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Babies exposed to air pollution have greater risk of death - study

Infant mortality rate higher in babies exposed to pollutants such as sulphur dioxide

Babies living in areas with high levels of air pollution have a greater risk of death than those surrounded by cleaner air, a study has found.

It is not the first study to investigate the link between air pollution and infant mortality , but thestudydrew particular focus on different pollutants and its analysis at different points in babies’ lives.

Related: Air pollution harm to unborn babies may be global health catastrophe, warn doctors

Related: UK parents 'worryingly unaware' of damage from air pollution

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How a pioneering study of child health has influenced a generation of parents | Juliet Rix

Prof Jean Golding has been tracking the ‘Children of the 90s’ for nearly 30 years, most recently finding a 50% increase in rates of prenatal depression

At a bright green table scattered with toys and juice cups sit Charlotte and her six-year-old daughter Amelia, while two-year-old Isabella races a yellow plastic shopping trolley across the floor. Being here is much more fun than school, announces Amelia, as she shows off the animal plaster that covers her (apparently painless) blood test to a smiling Professor Jean Golding.

The emeritus professor of paediatrics and perinatal epidemiology at the University of Bristol is founder of the hugely influential Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (Alspac), better known as Children of the 90s (CO90s). She has just turned 80 and has just published her latest paper on child health.

Related: Children in UK least happy they have been in a decade, says report

Related: Summer camps for all: no mobiles, no selfies – just the chance to be children | Hazel Davis

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'Like a sunburn on your lungs': how does the climate crisis impact health?

Children, pregnant people and the elderly are the most at risk from extreme weather and heat – but the impact is already felt across every specialty of medicine

The climate crisis is making people sicker – worsening illnesses ranging from seasonal allergies to heart and lung disease.

Children, pregnant people and the elderly are the most at risk from extreme weather and rising heat. But the impact of the climate crisis – for patients, doctors and researchers – is already being felt across every specialty of medicine, with worse feared to come.

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Lit review – a blistering look at teenage trauma

Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
Eve Austin is vividly volatile as a schoolgirl adrift over summer holidays in Sophie Ellerby’s slow-burning drama for HighTide

Year 9 is said to be the toughest for schoolchildren. The looming GCSE workload hasn’t yet fixed their focus, bodies seem to change by the day, emotions explode and a no man’s land opens up between childhood and adulthood. Sophie Ellerby’s slow-burning debut play, Lit, mostly unfolds over the summer holidays bridging years 9 and 10 in a Nottingham secondary. These are weeks that may be spent reading Harry Potter at home, as the sheltered Ruth does, or partying in a field off the A52 with an older boy, which is where Ruth’s unlikely new friend Bex finds herself.

Bex Bentley (“Like the car – proper classy”) can light up a room with her smile and her filthy wit, which is frequently deployed in raging retorts to her beleaguered foster mum, Sylvia. Bex, like Ellerby’s play, can be both as fizzy and sour as the Tangfastic sweets she demands from Dillon, her new boyfriend, before she’ll take her top off.

At Omnibus, London, 17-21 September and at Nottingham Playhouse, 24 September-5 October.

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I want another baby but maternity leave would stall my career | Dear Mariella

That women are still in this position is enraging, says Mariella Frostrup. Know your rights and stand your ground

The dilemma I have a 21-month-old baby and took six months maternity leave. Since returning to work I’ve managed large projects and am delaying trying for baby number two as I don’t want to leave during project delivery. I have high aspirations and I really like my job and enjoy these opportunities. My boss is offering me another big project next year and I feel in a predicament. If I have my “family life” hat on, I don’t want to leave trying for another baby any longer, but if all goes well, I would be pregnant for a large portion of it and my boss wouldn’t give ownership to me – he’d find someone else on the team. My husband thinks we should just go for it. However, it doesn’t have a massive effect on his working life and career. I’d be grateful if there were any reality checks as I feel I’m going around in circles.

Mariella replies Let’s not leap too far ahead. First, can I just say how livid your letter makes me. There’s too much lip service paid to advances in equality for women, generally from those with something to gain by association (ie politicians or business moguls). But whether it’s sexual abuse or harassment, equal pay, investment in female-specific medical research or a fairer division of domestic labour, we still haven’t caught up with the rhetoric. Instead, we dawdle in the doldrums and it’s hard not to surmise that no matter how loud we shout and how many headlines we monopolise with salacious stories of starlets abused, enduring equality remains far from accomplished.

You have every right to this work and no duty to inform your boss

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'If men got pregnant, it'd be taken more seriously': behind the scenes of Seahorse – video

The documentary Seahorse tells the story of trans man Freddy McConnell, whose attempt to conceive and give birth was filmed from start to finish. In this exclusive video for the Guardian, McConnell and Seahorse's director, Jeanie Finlay, discuss the filming process and the challenges of portraying an emotional and unpredictable situation

• Seahorse is out now at UK cinemas
• Read the Weekend magazine interview with Freddy McConnell

Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth, is presented by BBC Two and produced by Andrea Cornwell, Jeanie Finlay, Grain Media and Glimmer films

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Here’s what I lost and what I discovered in the process of surviving breast cancer | Amanda Niehaus

We had planned to get pregnant again when I found the lump in my breast

I was 31, finishing my PhD in ecological physiology and planning ahead for an academic career. Planning ahead like I always did, I figured this was the right time to start a family. I’d hand in my thesis and we’d have two in quick succession – maybe even twins, a boy and a girl – then I’d get back to research. I knew the rules, the game. I wanted two kids, maybe three; I wanted lecturer, senior lecturer, associate professor, professor; I wanted to succeed.

We got pregnant straight away, and our daughter was born in September. She was small and didn’t sleep and I couldn’t keep up with feeds, much less research papers. But in late April 2008, as planned, we started trying to get pregnant again.

Related: I was 31 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer – it cost me so much | Becca Leaver

Related: New breast cancer treatment offers hope of longer life to younger women

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Doctors can perform C-section if woman loses mental capacity, judge rules

Ruling comes despite woman, who has bipolar disorder, saying she does not want procedure

A judge has given doctors permission to perform a caesarean section on a woman with mental health problems if she becomes agitated during labour and loses the capacity to make decisions about how her baby should be born.

The woman has been deemed to have the mental capacity to make decisions and has told doctors that a caesarean section is “the last thing she would agree to”, Mr Justice Hayden heard.

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