Stanford Bourne obituary

Pioneering psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who specialised in studying the effects of stillbirth on women’s mental health

The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Stanford Bourne, who has died aged 92 of congestive cardiac failure, broke the silence in the 1960s surrounding the anguish of stillbirth. His work opened up discussion, addressed medical bias, and guided doctors and midwives towards a more compassionate approach.

In the 60s, 18,000 women a year had a stillborn baby, but it was cloaked in secrecy. Well-meaning staff quickly removed babies before parents could see, name or hold them, and they were “disposed of” – cremated or buried with nothing to mark the spot. Parents were expected to stifle their grief and often urged to “try for another”.

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‘Just a miscarriage’: has anything improved in NSW since Jana Horska’s shocking experience in 2007?

More than a decade after a parliamentary inquiry promised to overhaul the management of early pregnancy complications, underfunding, understaffing and insensitivity continue to fail women in their darkest hour

Fourteen years ago, Jana Horska had a miscarriage in a toilet at Sydney’s Royal North Shore hospital after waiting for hours, in pain, with no assistance or information from staff.

She was 14 weeks pregnant.

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Prison guards, but not mother, get counselling after baby dies in cell

Exclusive: Report from the ombudsman found that the guards who failed to help were offered bereavement support but not the grieving teenager

A vulnerable 18-year-old whose baby died after her calls for help were ignored as she gave birth alone in a prison cell was not provided with bereavement support – but the prison guards who failed to get her medical assistance were offered counselling, the Observer can reveal.

The details were buried in a devastating report from a prison watchdog published last week that described how the teenager was found in bed cradling her dead baby more than 12 hours after pressing her cell bell and telling staff at the privately run HMP Bronzefield that she needed an ambulance.

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Fear of more baby deaths as ministers stand firm on jailing pregnant women

Critics condemn failure to end practice despite tragedies in Kent and Cheshire prisons

Experts have warned that more babies could die in prison owing to the government’s expansion of female prison places and ministers’ refusal to grant multiple requests to end the incarceration of pregnant women.

The warning comes after an investigation report published by the Prisons & Probation Ombudsman on Wednesday, revealed in chilling detail how in September 2019 an 18-year-old prisoner at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Kent, was forced to deliver her baby alone in her cell. The baby did not survive.

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Damning report published into death of baby born to teenager in prison cell

Inquiry into how 18-year-old gave birth on her own in HMP Bronzefield in Ashford finds many failings

A catalogue of failures among prison and health professionals has been highlighted in an investigation report into the death of a teenager’s baby after she gave birth alone in her cell at the largest women’s prison in Europe.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman published the devastating report into the events in September 2019 at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Middlesex on Wednesday. The case was first revealed by the Guardian and the baby’s death triggered 11 separate inquiries.

There was confusion among different health professionals about her due date.

The day before her baby was born she told a prison nurse she would kill herself or someone else if the baby was taken away from her, but this information was not adequately shared.

On 26 September she was put on extended observation, meaning she should have been regularly checked but this did not happen. She rang the bell twice at 8.07pm and 8.32pm that day. A call was connected then immediately disconnected at 8.45pm. She did not press the bell again. Checks by prison officers at 9.27pm and 4.19am revealed “nothing untoward”.

It was left to two prisoners to alert staff to the fact that there was blood in her cell at 8.21am on 27 September.

A pathologist was unable to determine if the baby was born alive or stillborn.

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Texas anti-abortion law shows ‘terrifying’ fragility of women’s rights, say activists

Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US

The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.

Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.

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Listen by Kathryn Mannix review – a wise guide to finding the right words

From adoption to sexuality, early pregnancy to death, a palliative care doctor explores the discussions we often try to avoid

“Right now, there is quite likely to be a conversation you are trying to avoid,” writes Kathryn Mannix in her new book Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations, a follow-up to With the End in Mind, her moving and bestselling exploration of how to die well. “We all have moments when words fail us,” she explains. “This book is an invitation to notice and expand the skills we all possess.”

Using her wide experience as a consultant specialising in palliative care, an area where good communication is paramount, Mannix examines why we may shy away from broaching certain topics with our loved ones, what tools we can use to make those conversations easier to have, and the stumbling blocks we all may encounter along the way. While the author’s background means that the end of life features strongly in this book, it is by no means exclusively about palliative medicine, and it takes the reader through a broad range of situations from adoption to sexuality, from the death of a child in early pregnancy to growing old. Mannix uses real scenarios, from her personal and professional life, to illustrate her theory, and as a result, wisdom, grace and humility shine from every page.

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Together Together review – Ed Helms surrogacy comedy that’s a little over-polite

Wan jokes land softly as pregnant Anna gets to know single father Matt in a film that looks wussy next to The Surrogate

This gentle, low-key comedy-drama laudably tries to sketch the outlines of a unique relationship, between a surrogate and the single biological father of the child she’s carrying, which itself could never have existed until the advent of IVF. Surrogacy may have been around for a while, but as a species and a culture we’re all still working out how to do it on a social-emotional level, and that proves a reasonably fertile ground for a comedy of modern manners. That said, Together Together suffers a little from being too polite, as a comedy it lacks snarl, and as a drama it lacks, well, event. Nothing much really happens – but maybe that’s the point.

Millennial barista Anna (Patti Harrison) has signed up to be a surrogate because she needs the money to complete the university degree she never finished before she got pregnant. She gave up that first child for adoption, and plans to hand over the next one as soon as he or she is born to fortysomething software developer Matt (Ed Helms), the biological father who conceived the foetus with an unknown egg donor. The two didn’t know each other before at all, but since they both live in Los Angeles and seemingly don’t have that much to do, they end up hanging out together a lot. At first it’s just dinner (he tries to micromanage what she eats), but before long they’re redecorating the nursery together, throwing baby showers, and binge watching Friends, which Anna professes to have never seen.

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Melbourne’s Covid lockdown restrictions led to fewer preterm births, and researchers want to examine why

An Australian study on pregnant women during the 2020 pandemic found a 30% reduction in babies born prematurely

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Obstetricians and gynaecologists are examining why Covid-19 lockdown restrictions in greater Melbourne seem to have led to a reduction in babies being born early.

A peer-reviewed paper published in the medical journal, Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and led by Monash Health obstetrician Dr Daniel Rolnik, was conducted across three maternity hospitals in Melbourne. The study included 3,150 women who were pregnant during tough Covid-19 pandemic restriction measures in Victoria during 2020, and 3,175 women who were pregnant before the restrictions were enforced.

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‘I found myself’: how the pandemic brought out the best in people

From a GP urging patients to get vaccinated to a Covid-bereaved support group founder, Covid, for some people, has meant helping others

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“When there’s an absolute catastrophe, you really find yourself. And I think I love being a GP.”

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Kareena Kapoor Khan on breaking pregnancy taboos: ‘No one wants to talk about belching and swollen feet!’

One of Bollywood’s most bankable actors has written a revolutionary pregnancy book that lifts the lid on libido, caesareans and more. She discusses power, pay and the reality behind the glamour

Days after giving birth to her first child – an emergency caesarean after the cord had wrapped itself around the baby’s neck – Kareena Kapoor Khan stood undressed and alone in front of a mirror in her bedroom. “There I was: scarred, chubby, puffy, tired,” she recalls of that moment in 2016. “I saw the baby bulge, the dark circles, the dressing bandage of my C-incision. I cannot describe how I felt.”

The image is stark; after all, if there is such a thing as Bollywood royalty, Kapoor Khan is it. The daughter of Bollywood legends, often described as among the most glamorous women in Bollywood, she is married to one of the leading actors of Hindi cinema and over two decades has become one of India’s most bankable stars.

Nonetheless, 20 years in the limelight has not stopped Kapoor Khan being open about parts of her life that most celebrities keep hidden. This has always set her apart in Bollywood and it is this approach that she has brought to her most recent project.

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Postnatal depression is frightening, but seeking support helps the whole family | Saretta Lee

It affects up to 20% of women and can be as complex as depression at any stage of life. But support is there

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

“I want to be a good mother but I’m afraid. I didn’t have a good childhood.”

The nurse held back tears as she told me what the patient had told her. Involuntarily, I felt the prick of tears too, at her horror and the patient’s, conveyed in the recollection. It wasn’t that the abuse was violent or at a very young age. The betrayal of a child’s trust is hard to hear. The patient’s mother, herself neglected and vulnerable in childhood, had been largely unavailable, sometimes frightening, and immersed in her own addictions; her stepfather, the gentler parent, was also a substance user and had abused her, even as she tried to support him, so he could provide care for her.

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