I wonder if my child will ever have the innocence I had two months ago, of not having to think about whether the air will kill you
Sitting, nauseous with morning sickness, on a park bench in the bright heat of an unusually hot spring day my partner and I watch children march past us, striking from school:
“What’s the point of an education if we have no future,” their signs say.
Continue reading...We want to hear from women who were discharged from the military for being pregnant – please share your experience
The first woman to have a child while on active duty was US Air Force Captain Susan Struck, who got pregnant in Vietnam in 1970 while working as a nurse. She fought the a regulation which automatically discharged pregnant women from the Air Force – and won.
However, women have been allowed in the US military since 1948. Between then and 1976, when the entire military ended the policy, thousands more women may have been discharged. We want to hear from them.
We want to understand how many women this affected and how this impacted their lives, and we want to tell their stories. We hope to receive enough responses with contact information to continue reporting on the stories of women impacted by this coercive regulation.
Experts say men have a higher risk of reproduction issues if born below average size
Baby boys born small for their gestational age have a greater chance of infertility as adults than those born at an average weight, research suggests.
About one in seven heterosexual couples in the UK experience infertility, meaning a year or more of trying for a baby without conceiving, figures show.
Continue reading...As a doctors’ and nurses’ strike paralyses Zimbabwe’s health system, one woman has delivered 100 babies in her flat
•Photographs by Cynthia R Matonhodze
Six expectant mothers groan through their labour pains in the lounge of a tiny two-roomed apartment in Mbare, Zimbabwe’s oldest township.
Sweating and visibly in pain, a heavily pregnant woman peeps through the window to catch a breath while others lie on the floor.
Continue reading...More than 2,000 women in this age group had babies last year, ONS figures show
The number of women aged 45 and over giving birth is at the highest level since records began 80 years ago, figures show.
The number of live births in this age group rose from 1,619 a decade ago to 2,366 in 2018. In 1938, when records began, there were 2,085 births to women over 45, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Related: The agony and ecstasy of becoming an older mother
Continue reading...Mode of delivery unrelated to whether a baby is overweight as a young adult, study suggests
Delivery by caesarean section does not increase the chance of a baby ending up overweight or obese as a young adult, researchers have found, contrary to previous research.
The authors of the study say their work drew on a huge number of people and more fully takes into account a wide range of possible factors that could explain why babies born by caesarean tend to end up heavier.
Related: Use of caesarean sections growing at 'alarming' rate
Related: Instead of judging women who want a C-section, why not listen? | Rebecca Schiller
Continue reading...Being pregnant is the weirdest thing I have ever experienced. But I broke some kind of code when I wrote about it on social media
When I read the message from the man on Twitter, I felt the instant inching of shame. It wasn’t what you would call rude. If he was asked, he would probably have called it “helpful”.
“You mention you’re pregnant way too much on here these days,” it said. He only came to my account for the “film stuff” – not beyond reason, given I am the editor of a film magazine. Nevertheless, as well as “film stuff”, I also talk about poverty, politics and domestic violence. I have sent a staggering number of tweets about cheese triangles. None of these topics warranted comment or were “too much”. But this was clearly different. I had breached a code.
Continue reading...Gelatine capsule could prevent unplanned pregnancies caused by errors in daily pill use
A contraceptive pill that needs to be taken only once a month has been developed by scientists.
The gelatine capsule, which has so far only been tested on pigs, dissolves in the stomach to a release a six-armed star-shaped polylmer structure that sits in the stomach for at least three weeks and releases synthetic hormones to prevent pregnancy.
Related: Revealed: pill still most popular prescribed contraceptive in England
Related: Long-lasting pill that releases drugs for two weeks a 'game-changer'
Related: From super-pills to second skin: meet the Willy Wonka revolutionising medicine
Continue reading...