‘I can’t forget the horror’: a young mother on giving birth twice during the Gaza war

Hadeel Al Gherbawi survived her two pregnancies despite extreme hunger and pain

• Childbirth under attack: how women and babies became targets in conflicts around the world

Hadeel Al Gherbawi was seven months pregnant when the war started in October 2023. Up until that point the 26-year-old had meticulously prepared for her son’s arrival. She visited her doctor twice a month because the pregnancy was high risk, had regular ultrasounds and took vitamins. “I love the details,” she says.

Living on the east side of Gaza City, close to the border with Israel, and knowing that being pregnant would make moving fast difficult, she decided to go to her parents in the west of Gaza City that first day. “I thought it was just going to be a few days and I would go back.”

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The kindness of strangers: a boy picked up my spilled shopping when I was too pregnant to reach the ground

I’d turned around for a second but that was all it took for my trolley to start rolling away. Before I could react, it tipped over

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I was heavily pregnant with twins and doing the weekly grocery shop for our already-large family. Doing much of anything when you’re that big isn’t fun, especially as I was battling issues including constant, intermittent contractions. Bending over to load groceries into the boot was sure to set the contractions off, so I was already dreading getting everything into the car.

I wheeled my shopping trolley out to the car park, then got my keys out to open the car and put my handbag on the passenger seat. I’d turned around for a second but that was all it took for my trolley to start rolling away. Before I could react, it had shot away from me and tipped over, spilling its contents across the ground.

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‘She was like a deer in headlights’: how unskilled radical birthkeepers took hold in Canada

In holistic communities and midwifery deserts, women are turning to the Free Birth Society for information and unlicensed providers

When the holistic practitioner Emma Cardinal, 32, became pregnant in May 2023, she planned to have a home birth with midwives. Cardinal lives in a town in British Columbia with strong counter-cultural roots. “The community that I live in, home birth is something a lot of women prioritise,” she explains.

Then Cardinal stumbled across a podcast from the Free Birth Society (FBS). One episode in particular, she says, made an impact: “Unpacking Ultrasound With Yolande Clark.” In it, the Canadian ex-doula Yolande Norris-Clark falsely links ultrasounds to autism and ADHD and states that “ultrasound damages and modifies and destroys cells”.

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The free birth influencers radicalising women around the world - podcast

The Free Birth Society (FBS) is a multimillion-dollar business that promotes the idea of women giving birth with no medical assistance. Now, a year-long Guardian investigation has revealed the FBS has been linked to baby deaths around the world. Mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors, all while influencers made millions pushing so-called ‘wild’ births.

Investigations correspondent Sirin Kale speaks to Reged Ahmad about why so many women find the claims made by the Free Birth Society so appealing but why medical experts say they are dangerous

You can read more from the investigation into the Free Birth Society here, and listen to the podcast in its entirety here.

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There’s no easy way to stop postpartum bleeding – but maternal choice is key | Letters

Prof Andrew Weeks, Anna Melamed and Sonia Richardson on the rising rate of postpartum haemorrhage, and the factors associated with it

Your report (Risk to women of severe bleeding after giving birth at five-year high in England, 13 December) rightly points out that the risk to women of severe bleeding after giving birth is at a five-year high. The article suggests that this is due to the declining quality and safety of NHS maternity care. But this is not true. The problem of increasing haemorrhage after birth is not simple, and neither women nor the quality of maternity care should be blamed.

In a recent World Health Organization analysis, the largest influence on the rate of haemorrhage was caesarean birth, and the only two factors that reduced the haemorrhage risk were home birth and early skin-to-skin contact/breastfeeding. Increased rates of haemorrhage are a natural consequence of high caesarean section rates. Sensationalist quotes of the “terrifying” risk to mothers of haemorrhage will only make the problem worse, as women seek to avoid labour in the NHS, either by choosing a caesarean (which increases the risk of haemorrhage) or by opting out of maternity care altogether (which increases the risk of death if haemorrhage occurs).

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How to eat, drink and be merry – while pregnant – at Christmas

Some traditional treats may be off the menu, but there are plenty of alternatives for a festive feast

For a festival with childbirth at its religious heart, it is perverse how much of our traditional Christmas spread isn’t recommended for pregnant women. Pre-pregnancy, this was not something I’d clocked. I was the soft cheese supremo, canape queen – at my happiest with a smoked trout blini in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. Then one day in October, two blue lines appeared on a test result and everything started to change: my body, my future and most pressingly my Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong: no present under the tree can match the gift I’ve got in store. But as a food writer who loves this season, I can’t think of a worse time to be nauseated, exhausted and forbidden by the NHS to eat, drink or do my favourite things to eat, drink or do in winter. I have no alternatives for saunas, skiing and hot baths. I do, however, know enough chefs, bartenders, retailers and producers to create a Christmas feast that is full of wonder, joy and within the NHS guidelines.

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Caesareans overtake natural vaginal births in England for first time, NHS data finds

45% of births were through C-sections, 44% through natural vaginal births and 11% assisted with forceps or ventouse

Births through caesarean section have overtaken natural vaginal births in England for the first time, NHS data has revealed.

Last year, 45% of births in England were through caesareans, 44% were through natural vaginal births and 11% were assisted with instruments such as forceps or ventouse, according to the data published on Tuesday.

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Best of 2025: Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death coming for me’ – podcast

Each week for the rest of December we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we’ve chosen it.

From July: the Victorians called it ‘pernicious vomiting of pregnancy’, but modern medicine has offered no end to the torture of hyperemesis gravidarum – until now

By Abi Stephenson. Read by Nicolette Chin

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The Guardian view on birth influencers: the public need protecting from bad advice | Editorial

Our investigation of the Free Birth Society points to problems with maternity care and the role played by technology

Despite all the proven advances of modern medicine, some people are drawn to alternative or “natural” cures and practices. Many of these do no harm. As the cancer specialist Prof Chris Pyke noted last year, people undergoing cancer treatment will often try meditation or vitamins as well. When such a change is in addition to, and not instead of, evidence-based treatment, this is usually not a problem. If it reduces distress, it can help.

But the proliferation of online health influencers poses challenges that governments and regulators in many countries have yet to grasp. The Guardian’s investigation into the Free Birth Society (FBS), a business offering membership and advice to expectant mothers, and training for “birth keepers”, has exposed 48 cases of late-term stillbirths or other serious harm involving mothers or birth attendants who appear to be linked to FBS. While the company is based in North Carolina, its reach is international. In the UK, the NHS only recently removed a webpage linking to a charity “factsheet” that recommended FBS materials.

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Exposed: the business linked to baby deaths across the world – The Latest

A year-long investigation into the Free Birth Society reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors.

Lucy Hough talks to the investigative correspondent Lucy Osborne about her reporting – watch on YouTube

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Friday briefing: How the Free Birth Society’s ​philosophy ​contributed to a ​preventable ​death

In today’s newsletter: A new Guardian podcast, The Birth Keepers, explores how a global network promoting unassisted childbirth has shaped women’s decisions​ around childbirth. One mother’s story stands as a stark warning

Good morning. Last month, we brought you the story behind the Guardian’s year-long investigation into the US-based Free Birth Society, a multi-million dollar business whose philosophy has been linked to traumatic births and even baby deaths around the world.

The society promotes a version of free birth (or unassisted birth) with no medical support that is seen as extreme, even among advocates of the practice. Unlike home births, which have a midwife in attendance, free birth involves delivering without medical help. The group influences women via podcasts, social media and online schools and, the Guardian found, advises mothers to steer clear of doctors and midwives, is anti-ultrasound, which it falsely claims harms babies, and downplays serious medical conditions.

UK news | The US is engaging in “extreme rightwing tropes” reminiscent of the 1930s, British MPs warned ministers on Thursday, after the release of Donald Trump’s national security strategy.

Health | The NHS is facing its “worst-case scenario” for flu cases this month across England after the number of people in hospital with the illness increased by 55% in a week.

Iran | A child bride who was due to be executed this month in Iran over the death of her husband has had her life spared by his parents, who were paid the equivalent of £70,000 in exchange for their forgiveness.

UK politics | Downing Street has vowed to force the Lords to vote on the employment rights bill again next week, after Conservative and cross-bench peers blocked it on Wednesday night.

Topic | The US wants Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the Donbas region, and Washington would then create a “free economic zone” in the parts where Kyiv has held off the Russian invasion – but “they don’t know” under whose control it would be, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

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The Birth Keepers: how the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world – video

The Free Birth Society (FBS) is a multimillion-dollar business that promotes an extreme version of free birth, meaning women giving birth without medical assistance. The Guardian can now reveal that the organisation has been linked to dozens of cases of maternal harm and baby deaths around the world. After a year-long investigation, Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne explain why some women they interviewed found FBS’s views so appealing, and why medical professionals say their claims about birth are dangerous

• The Birth Keepers: I choose this – episode one

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One in five women in England say their concerns were ignored during childbirth, survey finds

Women say fears were dismissed and help was unavailable at crucial moments during labour

Almost one in five women feel their concerns were not taken seriously by healthcare professionals during childbirth, according to the “concerning” results of a national survey of maternity experiences.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) survey of almost 17,000 women who gave birth across England in NHS settings this year found that 15% felt they had not been given relevant advice or support when they contacted a midwife at the start of their labour, while 18% said their concerns had not been taken seriously.

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ICE is tracking pregnant women all the way to the delivery room: ‘She was so afraid they would take her baby’

Pregnant immigrants in ICE monitoring programs are avoiding care, fearing detention during labour and delivery

In early September, a woman, nine months pregnant, walked into the emergency obstetrics unit of a Colorado hospital. Though the labor and delivery staff caring for her expected her to have a smooth delivery, her case presented complications almost immediately.

The woman, who was born in central Asia, checked into the hospital with a smart watch on her wrist, said two hospital workers who cared for her during her labor, and whom the Guardian is not identifying to avoid exposing their hospital or patients to retaliation.

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‘There’s no longer a heartbeat’: the couple whose twins were stillborn – and the ‘birth keeper’ they blame

Soon-to-be parents hired a woman they believed would act as a licensed midwife. But she in fact belonged to a radical society that was linked to baby deaths around the world

• Read more of the Guardian’s investigations into the Free Birth Society

Ernesta Chirwa recalls the jarring moment the woman she presumed was her midwife said something unexpected. Caitlyn Collins was driving her to hospital after 6am, on 15 February 2022. “She said,” says Chirwa, who is 30 and lives in Cape Town, “Please don’t mention to the nurses that we were trying to have a home birth.”

Chirwa was in too much pain to speak – she was in active labour. But she remembers feeling surprised. “Why,” Chirwa recalls, “is she asking us not to mention that we were trying to have a home birth?”

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Death of Irish mother in ‘free birth’ reveals how poor maternity care is pushing women towards extreme influencers

Women in Ireland and the UK linked to Free Birth Society among scores around world to have suffered loss or serious harm after births

• Full story: How the FBS is linked to baby deaths around the world

Over a weekend in late June 2024, Emilee Saldaya, the leader of the Free Birth Society, hosted a festival on her 21-hectare (53-acre) property in North Carolina. It was a celebratory gathering for FBS, a multimillion-dollar business that promotes a radical approach to giving birth without medical support.

Promotional footage from the Matriarch Rising festival shows Saldaya dancing beside her private lake, wearing a crown. That same weekend, more than 3,000 miles away, in Dundalk, a town on the east coast of Ireland, Naomi James, bled to death after freebirthing her son.

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Naima Green’s striking portraits of pregnancy – in pictures

Artist Naima Green has explored the concept and expectations of motherhood in a solo exhibition called Instead, I spin fantasies which is currently on show at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York City. The photos, which are a mix of real and semi-fictional, feature Green herself with a prosthetic pregnant belly and others in her life and community. ‘I’m trying to explore a very expansive picture across different geographies, different classes, different ideas of family, just as a way of seeing, understanding or creating different possibilities for family-making,’ she said in a recent interview

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I want be a single mum, but feel envious of peers with partners | Annalisa Barbieri

It is good that you are getting expert counselling, but seeking support from other solo mums might be helpful too

I am a very lucky person who has a huge amount to be happy and grateful for. But although I have many excellent friendships, I have had very few romantic relationships. I am now 36 and after 10 years of giving dating a real “go”, I have decided to become a single mum by choice. This has been a very positive decision for me and I am excited about the journey.

During a pre-screening psychological counselling session, the psychologist spoke about the grief many women in my shoes experience as a result of not having the family they’d hoped for. Although I was aware of this and have worked extensively on self-acceptance with my own therapist, I now feel deep sadness and regret at being unable to have formed a relationship with someone who wanted to have children with me. In my friends and colleagues groups, this sets me apart from most women my age. I am envious of the companionship and support my peers receive from their partners.

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The loss of access to and respect for autonomous midwifery is tragic | Letters

A concerned NHS midwife responds to an article about the Free Birth Society

I’m an NHS midwife, despairing over your article (Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world, 22 November). My key frustration, though, is how, as with any successful charlatanism, there is truth and real fear being exploited: medical overreach blights lives, women can and should trust their bodies, and a healthy body rarely grows a baby it can’t birth.

However, physiology is not a perfected endpoint. Evolution continues with genetic variation spreading through a population by “survival of the fittest”. In the brutal “wild”, the least “well-adapted” (whether by health or circumstance) do not survive. Human beings, however, don’t like those odds. Medical intervention, yes, but a body of life-saving social knowledge has been passed down since language began, towards facilitating successful birth.

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‘I tried to capture her inner world – but couldn’t’: Tom de Freston on painting his wife pregnant and nude

The artist and his wife, novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave, lost seven pregnancies before their daughter was born. They explain how his nude paintings of her helped them process their grief – and eventual joy

‘The subject comes with huge baggage and I like that,” says Tom de Freston. The painter and I are in his studio in a village outside Oxford, surrounded by nude portraits of his wife, the novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave. “I wanted to ask, ‘What does it mean as a male artist to be looking at the female figure? And where does the agency sit?’”

We have been talking about Titian’s Poesie series, how those paintings – commissioned by the most powerful man in the world at the time, King Philip II of Spain – fetishise the naked female body. “Obviously there’s other things going on in them … I think Titian’s often prodding at morality and power,” De Freston says.

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I got an epidural for all three of my births – none of them worked as expected

Here’s what you should know before getting an epidural – and why it might not provide full pain relief as expected

The first time I got an epidural, it was too late.

I’d heard it was best to wait, for fear the medication would run out mid-labor (I later found out this is a myth). So I gritted my teeth through hours of contractions, and when I finally told the nurses I was ready, the anesthesiologist was with another patient.

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NHS directed pregnant women to controversial Free Birth Society via charity

Exclusive: NHS websites pointed women to factsheet featuring podcast by ‘dangerous’ influencers linked to baby deaths

• Full story: How the FBS is linked to baby deaths around the world

The NHS has been directing pregnant women to a website that connected them to the Free Birth Society, an organisation that has been linked to baby deaths around the world after promoting labour without medical support.

A number of NHS trusts are directing women who are contemplating a “free birth” to a charity website that until Monday referred to FBS podcasts as a source of “empowering stories” that can help British women “preparing for their own birth”.

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Monday briefing: What a new Guardian investigation reveals about a group ‘radicalising’ women into unassisted birth

In today’s newsletter: A report dives into the disturbing story of a ‘wild’ pregnancy and freebirth business that ‘radicalises’ women, with tragic consequences

Good morning. This weekend, the Guardian launched the results of its year-long investigation into radical free birthing, and the US-based Free Birth Society (FBS). Our reporting reveals how influencers made millions by pushing “free births”, with no medical support, and how the society is now linked to the deaths of newborn babies around the world.

FBS, a multimillion dollar business, promotes a version of free birth, otherwise known as unassisted birth, that is seen as extreme, even among advocates of the practice. Unlike home births, which have a midwife in attendance, free birth involves delivering without medical assistance. The FBS advises mothers to steer clear of doctors and midwives, is anti-ultrasound (which it falsely claims harms babies) and downplays serious medical conditions, the Guardian found.

Ukraine | European countries proposed a radical alternative Ukraine peace plan on Sunday that omits some of the pro-Russia points made in the original US-backed document and calls for Kyiv’s sovereignty to be respected.

Politics | Rachel Reeves will launch a fresh crackdown on benefit fraud, alongside scrapping the two-child welfare limit and freezing rail fares, while putting forward a multibillion-pound tax-raising package.

Media | The BBC is planning to overhaul the way it investigates editorial concerns, in a move that will dilute the influence of a Conservative figure accused of trying to sway its political impartiality.

Skye Gyngell | Tributes have been paid to the pioneering chef and restaurant proprietor, who has died aged 62.

Politics | David Cameron has disclosed he was treated for prostate cancer and has called for a targeted screening programme.

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Five key findings from our investigation into the Free Birth Society

Year-long investigation into multimillion-dollar business exposed serious concerns, from dangerous medical claims to FBS-linked stillbirths

• Full story: How the FBS is linked to baby deaths around the world

The Free Birth Society (FBS) is a business run from North Carolina that promotes the idea of women giving birth without midwives or doctors present.

It is led by Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark, ex-doulas turned social media influencers who have gained a global following through the FBS podcast, which has been downloaded millions of times.

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Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world

A year-long investigation reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors

As Esau Lopez was asphyxiated for the first 17 minutes of his life on Earth, the atmosphere in the room remained serene, even ecstatic. Acoustic music crooned from a speaker in a modest two-bedroom apartment in a suburb of Pennsylvania. “You are a queen,” murmured one of three friends in the room.

Only Esau’s mother, Gabrielle Lopez, felt something was wrong. She was pushing hard, but her son would not be born. “Can you help [him] out?” she asked, as Esau crowned. “Baby is coming,” the friend replied. Four minutes later, Lopez asked again, “Can you grab [him]?” Another friend murmured, “Baby is safe.” Six minutes passed. Again, Lopez asked, “Can you grab [him]?”

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Everything I wish I’d known before I decided to freeze my eggs at 36

More and more people are turning to egg freezing to increase their chances of becoming a parent. Here’s what you need to know if you’re considering it – from the hidden costs to the chances of success

When I first told my mother I was freezing my eggs, she asked: “So my grandchildren are going to be stored next to some Häagen-Dazs?” (Very funny, Mum.) I’m one of an increasing number of women in the UK who have chosen to put their eggs on ice in order to preserve their fertility, although this does – as discussed later – have clear limitations.

According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK’s regulator for the fertility industry, there was a 170% increase in the number of egg freezing cycles between 2019 and 2023. The technology has been around since the 80s, but became more accessible in the 00s with vitrification, a flash-freezing technique. Now, celebrities such as Florence Pugh and Michaela Coel openly discuss their experiences of it, and companies such as Meta, Spotify and Goldman Sachs subsidise the procedure for employees.

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The inevitable inelegance of the third trimester: the Edith Pritchett cartoon

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Pregnancy after loss has shown me that love doesn’t end – it just changes shape | Lauren Farrugia

I’ve learned that grief and love can coexist, not as opposites but as two currents running in the same river

Pregnancy after loss is full of contradictions. It is hope that feels cautious, like it might dissolve if you breathe too hard. It is learning to live again inside a body that remembers grief.

I am now officially in my third trimester, and each day brings small signs of life: a flutter, a roll, a hiccup, the steady rhythm of his heart. I am growing a baby I will meet, hold and raise. But I have also carried a baby I never got to meet. For 13 weeks, my body held her. It nurtured her, protected her, grew her placenta, still believing she was safe. And in a way, she was. My husband told me then: “She only ever knew love and warmth”, and that has never left me.

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No link between paracetamol in pregnancy and autism or ADHD in children, review finds

Wide-ranging review finds no convincing connection after Trump said women should ‘fight like hell’ to avoid painkiller

A wide-ranging review into paracetamol use by pregnant women has found no convincing link between the common painkiller and the chances of children being diagnosed with autism and ADHD.

Publication of the work was fast-tracked to provide prospective mothers and their doctors with reliable information after the Trump administration urged pregnant women to avoid paracetamol – also known as acetaminophen or Tylenol – claiming it was contributing to rising rates of autism.

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Firms not supporting staff through IVF could lose £217m in hidden costs, study shows

Cost of sick leave for appointments, productivity loss and resignations is more than of paid leave, research estimates

UK employers who do not formally support staff undergoing fertility treatments could be losing £217.3m a year in sick leave, lost productivity and resignations, research estimates.

Companies without fertility leave pay £35,317 per affected employee, compared with a cost of £388 for 10 days’ paid leave when a clear fertility policy is in place, the campaign group Fertility Matters at Work estimated.

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Women must be warned of home birth risks and have access to skilled midwives, experts say

Exclusive: Pregnancy experts warn of inadequate medical advice and lack of safe and reliable care

Women must be given clearer warnings on the potentially fatal dangers of giving birth at home and should only be aided by experienced midwives, experts have said.

Maternity services worldwide are dealing with an increase in the number of women with more complex pregnancies. Many are choosing to have their baby in a familiar environment, in the comfort and privacy of their own home. Some choose a home birth because having their first baby in hospital was “deeply traumatic” and they are reluctant to repeat the experience.

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UK’s unregulated pregnancy scan clinics putting lives in danger, say experts

Hospital specialists report cases of missed health problems, misdiagnosed conditions, and women erroneously told their babies had died

High street clinics offering pregnancy scans could be putting unborn babies and their mothers in danger through a lack of properly trained staff, UK experts have warned.

According to the Society for Radiographers (SoR), high street clinics have seen a huge growth in numbers. However, hospital specialists say they have seen cases of missed health problems, misdiagnosed conditions, and situations in which women were erroneously told their babies were malformed or had died.

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Unregulated sperm donor still advertising services despite court warnings to women

Exclusive: Behaviour of Robert Albon, or ‘Joe Donor’, described as compulsive by judge who said he targeted vulnerable women

A prolific unregulated donor is still attempting to sell his sperm despite warnings from two family court judges, a Guardian investigation has found.

Robert Albon, who calls himself “Joe Donor”, has appealed to the courts to gain access to at least four of his biological children against their mothers’ wishes. In a rare move, a judge named him in 2023 to warn women of the risks of using his services, which he promotes on social media.

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A doctor’s bracing advice to new mums | Brief letters

Celebrities’ bodies | Rachel Reeves | Income tax | Dogs on sofas

Coco Khan’s article (Opinion, 22 October) reminded me of a visit to my GP 30 years ago, after the birth of my son. While waiting to go in, I’d been perusing the usual array of magazines featuring celebrities, several of whom had recently given birth and had seemingly bounced back into shape overnight. When I saw the doctor, a wonderful gentleman edging towards retirement, and quizzed him on how on earth this was possible, his response was quite simple: “Corsetry, my dear.”
Sarah Postins
Catworth, Cambridgeshire

• I have a question for Rachel Reeves in response to her column ( 28 October). Can she tell us the income threshold at which someone goes from being in the “working people” category to being in the “broadest shoulders” category? Then everyone will be crystal clear about what is coming for them in November’s budget.
Chris Hudson
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

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Australia’s remarkable success in reducing preterm births: ‘Babies are being born when they should be’

Wendy Andrews’ blood pressure was dangerously high at 31 weeks, but doctors were able to delay delivery and strengthen her baby

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

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When Wendy Andrews went for a routine check-up at 31 weeks and six days pregnant, her blood pressure was dangerously high at 150/120. This signalled pre-eclampsia, a condition that often forces early delivery.

Her reading was marked as concerning and midwives referred Andrews to Canberra hospital’s foetal medicine unit, which she says helped her deliver a healthy baby.

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Texas sues Tylenol makers alleging deceptive marketing to pregnant people

Lawsuit comes after Trump’s baseless claims that acetaminophen can cause autism and ADHD in children

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, filed a lawsuit against the makers of Tylenol, claiming they deceptively marketed the pain medication to pregnant people despite alleged risks of autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children.

Paxton filed the suit on Tuesday in Texas state court against Johnson & Johnson, the creators of Tylenol, and Kenvue, a Johnson & Johnson spinoff company which has sold Tylenol since 2023.

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‘The thought of not being thin for my wedding makes me want to die’: the new mothers driven to weight-loss jabs

The NHS warns against using GLP-1s while breastfeeding – for the baby’s sake as well as the mother’s. But how much does that count when they’re so readily available and there’s so much pressure to ‘bounce back’?

Lydia* first started thinking about weight-loss drugs during pregnancy. “Everyone was talking about them and the advertisements were everywhere,” she says, as her baby son naps upstairs. “I remember thinking: ‘That’s how I’ll lose weight for my wedding next year.’”

When Lydia explains that most of her life before pregnancy was spent in a welter of yo-yo dieting and body dissatisfaction, I say to her that I think most of us can relate. Her pregnancy, however, brought a level of body acceptance and contentment that the 33-year-old from Wales had never had before.

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Pregnant women report medical neglect in ICE detention, rights groups say

Women report miscarriages, delayed care, being shackled and being held in solitary confinement, letter says

Pregnant women have reported bleeding, miscarriages, being shackled and other instances of medical neglect while in US immigration custody, according to a group of prominent civil rights organizations.

The groups – which include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its Louisiana chapter, the National Immigration Project, Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, Sanctuary of the South and Sanctuary Now Abolition Project – sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Senate committees on Wednesday, describing interviews with more than a dozen women.

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It’s great to see pregnant women in the public eye – but must they all be so gorgeous? | Coco Khan

Call me cynical, but I have a feeling Victoria’s Secret wouldn’t have sent a heavily pregnant model down the runway if she looked like most of us do at that stage

Determined to find new ways to stay in the headlines, the underwear brand Victoria’s Secret recently had the model Jasmine Tookes – one of its most longstanding “angels” – open its runway show nine months pregnant. As a postpartum woman myself, my first thought, of course, was: “Finally! A pregnant woman I can relate to.” Only joking: it was a deep concern for her ankles, followed by a wish that one day the modelling industry will solve its recruitment crisis, because surely short-staffing is the only justifiable reason for wanting a heavily pregnant woman to work.

Nonetheless, body image and pregnancy have been on my mind recently. It is a curious thing, giving birth. We are all here because someone did it, yet what happens to women, mentally and physically, remains less known than, say, Liz Truss losing to a lettuce. And even though those of us who have given birth know intellectually that what we have done is miraculous and we should be proud, we still struggle with what it does to our physiques.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Protective immune cells in breastfeeding women identified as guard against breast cancer, new research finds

Patients who had more cells had better outcomes, particularly for aggressive types such as triple-negative breast cancer

In the 18th century, physicians noticed nuns had some of the highest rates of breast cancer. It was one of the earliest clues that led scientists to suspect that child-bearing and breastfeeding could protect against the disease.

Modern data has confirmed the centuries-old observation but the biological reasons behind it have remained unclear. Explanations have often focused on pregnancy-related hormonal changes, but research published Tuesday in Nature has found breastfeeding provides long-lasting immune protection.

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The Guardian view on childbirth and medical negligence: rising payouts highlight the urgency of maternity improvements

Grave shortcomings in the care offered to mothers and babies are well documented. But it is not clear that the right lessons have been learned

The startling rise in the cost to the NHS in England of medical negligence cases, and a sharp increase in birth injuries to mothers, are the latest warning signs of deeply troubling failures in maternity services. The £60bn estimate of negligence liabilities, from the National Audit Office, represents a quadrupling in less than 20 years. While some medical specialties have seen falling payouts, those in obstetrics rose. The reason why payments in such negligence cases are so high is that when babies are injured, awards must cover lifetime care needs.

Grave shortcomings in maternity care are widely recognised, along with unjust disparities in outcomes for women from different socioeconomic and racial groups. Preventable deaths and injuries at units in Morecambe Bay, Shrewsbury and Telford, and East Kent, have been among the most shocking patient safety scandals of recent years.

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Thousands of new mothers in England readmitted to hospital after birth, figures show

Exclusive: More than 14,600 women readmitted within 30 days of birth in last year, raising alarm over early discharges

Thousands of new mothers are being readmitted to hospital in England every year, figures reveal, raising fresh concerns about NHS maternity care.

Discharging women from hospital prematurely increases the risk of conditions linked to childbirth being missed, and can be extremely distressing. If childbirth injuries or other conditions are not treated until the mother is readmitted days or weeks later, the chances of a complete recovery may also be reduced.

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Pregnant women in England at ‘growing risk’ of serious injury in childbirth

NHS figures show number of mothers sustaining third- or fourth-degree perineal tear has increased by 16% since 2020

Pregnant women in England are at growing risk of suffering a serious injury while giving birth, NHS figures reveal.

The number of mothers sustaining a third- or fourth-degree perineal tear while delivering their baby has risen from 25 in 1,000 in June 2020 to 29 in 1,000 in June this year – a 16% increase.

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From the archive: ‘Infertility stung me’: Black motherhood and me – podcast

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.

This week, from 2022: I assumed I would be part of the first generation to have full agency over my reproduction – but I was wrong

By Edna Bonhomme. Read by Nerissa Bradley

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Pregnancy skincare products target women at a vulnerable time. Do any work or do they just stretch the truth? | Antiviral

Oils, creams and lotions with names like ‘mummy’s tummy’, ‘bump love’ and ‘belly butter’ abound

• Read more in the Antiviral series

Pregnancy can be a trying time: you can’t tell whether you’re nauseous or hungry, your body is working at close to the sustainable limit of human endurance, your organs are rearranging to make space for a growing alien.

There are myriad indignities: nosebleeds, swelling feet, back pain, and, if you’re unlucky, ceaseless vomiting that goes “full Tarantino”.

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My extreme sickness in pregnancy feels like a personal failure, even as society glorifies motherhood as divine suffering | Intifar Chowdhury

Hyperemesis gravidarum – a condition routinely dismissed as ‘just morning sickness’ – doesn’t just affect your stomach, it hijacks your entire life

When I came back to my senses, I turned to the paramedic and whispered, “Did I say something about terminating the pregnancy?” My voice cracked. “Please … don’t judge me.” My mother was beside me as they wheeled me into the emergency room, and I was sick with worry that she’d heard me. That she’d be ashamed. But mostly, I was terrified they’d send me home. Again. That I wasn’t sick enough. That I was just another hormonal woman with a flair for drama.

This was week five of what I now know is hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), a condition where pregnancy nausea and vomiting go full Tarantino. I’d already been to the emergency department five times in two weeks. No diagnosis. Just a rinse-and-repeat routine: some staring down the tiles while holding a tie-and-twist vomit bag, some pokes and wriggles to find my dehydrated veins, some fluids and the awkward assurance that “baby is like a parasite, it will take everything it needs”. As if maternal suffering were a footnote. As if I were the side salad to the main course of foetal development.

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‘I wanted to write more than I wanted to have children’: author Sarah Perry on rejecting motherhood

When the novelist was faced with the decision of whether to pursue fertility treatment or focus on her career, her literary ambitions kicked in

Fifteen years ago, having said all my life that I never wanted a baby, that I couldn’t fathom why any free woman would do such a thing to her body and her mind, I suddenly and passionately wanted a child. I remember where I was when this feeling, so heretical to me, arrived: it was early morning in London, and having come down Fleet Street on my way to work, I was standing at the till of a newsagents to pay for a Diet Coke, a flapjack and a pack of Silk Cut. There were no children there and no pregnant women; nothing had been said or done to change my mind. It had simply landed on me, and more or less immediately – because I’ve never known how to control an impulse, and because I was 30, which seemed to me then a great age – my husband, Robert, and I set about trying to have a child.

When for some months nothing happened, I turned to the websites where women who’ve never met scrutinise their bodies for signs of pregnancy or fertility or miscarriage, and my vocabulary changed. I became able to communicate in acronyms impenetrable to anyone who hadn’t held a dozen ovulation sticks in a dozen urine streams, and it is all so long ago now that I only remember one: 2WW. At first I took this to be some dry reference to the second world war, since they did seem to be always in battle, these women, or in flight – but in fact it refers to the “two-week wait”, the fearful, hopeful days between sex and ovulation, and the first signs the uterus had succeeded or failed (that these signs can be identical sometimes invokes a kind of madness, to which I also briefly succumbed).

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Call to allow ‘safe and effective’ at-home abortions up to 12 weeks in UK

Experts point to study showing procedures at home are no risker or less successful than hospital care

At-home abortions should be allowed for up to 12 weeks of pregnancy across the UK, according to academics, after a study found they were just as safe and effective as hospital care.

A medical abortion involves taking two medications, mifepristone and misoprostol, to end a pregnancy. In 2022, at-home medical abortions were made permanent in England and Wales, after temporary legislation allowed them to take place at home during the pandemic. In Northern Ireland, at-home abortion care is not permitted at any gestation.

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How the White House used studies with ‘weak’ evidence to tie Tylenol to autism

Experts say White House presented ‘association as causation’ and based conclusions on ‘poor quality studies’

The White House recently issued a press release with links to scientific studies to back up Trump’s claim that use of acetaminophen, commonly referred to as Tylenol, during pregnancy causes autism, but those studies provided only “weak” and “inconclusive”, evidence, according to physicians with expertise in reviewing medical research who spoke to the Guardian.

Jeffrey Singer, a surgeon and senior fellow at the Cato Institute who has written about the Tylenol/autism claims, said that the links in the White House press release showed that the claims contained a political spin.

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Paracetamol and Donald Trump’s medical myths - podcast

When the US president stood up at the podium and announced a link between autism and paracetamol, he sent alarm through the medical community and the public.

Guardian science correspondent Hannah Devlin speaks to Reged Ahmad about what the science actually says about the painkiller and why experts fear Donald Trump is deliberately fostering a narrative of distrust

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Trump’s war on Tylenol is also very much a war on women | Arwa Mahdawi

A concern for women’s health is absolutely not at the heart of it – rather, this is yet another way to control women

Donald Trump is a man with no medical training. However, that’s never stopped the very stable genius from inflicting his unhinged health views on the rest of us, has it? Back in 2020, for example, Trump memorably mused that injecting disinfectant could help fight the coronavirus – which forced the maker of Dettol and Lysol to put out an urgent statement explaining that this was a very bad idea.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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‘The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death’: Florence Welch on sexism, screaming and the lost pregnancy that nearly killed her

The Florence + the Machine singer talks about life after devastating loss, performing with Taylor Swift and the double standards for women in music

After Florence Welch came close to death, she felt strongly that, more than people, she wanted to be with plants and animals. “It was a real need to be around things that couldn’t speak, but had a life force or energy to them. I found that the most healing,” she says. Since then, cats have kept coming to visit her garden. Not her cats – it is hard for her to have pets, what with all the touring – but neighbourhood cats, treating the place as if they live there. “I’m not saying anything, but more and more started coming, and foxes,” she says. She sees patterns and prescience in many things, now. “I don’t know. Or maybe I just noticed them more, because that’s what I needed to be around.”

In August 2023, Welch had a miscarriage. Days later, she learned that the pregnancy had been ectopic, meaning that the fertilised egg had implanted in a fallopian tube, rather than the uterus. The fallopian tube then ruptured, causing massive internal bleeding. “The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death,” she says. “And I felt like I had stepped through this door, and it was just full of women, screaming.”

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Why is the Trump administration obsessed with autism? – podcast

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has long been consumed by the neurological condition autism – what causes it, and whether there’s a treatment. This week, Donald Trump took on the cause, making claims about acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol and paracetamol, that were dismissed outright by medical experts around the world.

Jonathan Freedland speaks to Carter Sherman, the reproductive health and justice reporter at Guardian US, about when and why the obsession with autism became political

Archive: Good Morning America, NPR, NBC News, WHAS11, BBC News, CBS News, Jimmy Kimmel Live, LiveNowFox

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The truth behind Trump's claims about autism and paracetamol, or Tylenol – video

Global health agencies and regulators have dismissed unscientific advice from Donald Trump, who made an unproven link between autism and the use of everyday painkillers and vaccines. But the science wasn’t the only problem with that press conference. Matilda Boseley explains what you need to know

• Is Tylenol the same as paracetamol, and should you take it in pregnancy? Here’s why experts say Trump should be ignored

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Obama says Trump linking paracetamol to autism is ‘violence against the truth’

Former president says successor’s claims about drug branded Tylenol in US ‘undermines public health that can do harm to women’

Barack Obama has said Donald Trump’s claims linking paracetamol to autism in infants is “violence against the truth” that could harm pregnant women if they were too scared to take pain relief.

Obama, who was being interviewed by David Olusoga at the O2 Arena, told the audience that Trump’s claims about paracetamol – branded as Tylenol in the US – had been “continuously disproved” and posed a danger to public health.

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Pregnant women deserve so much better than Trump’s theatre of scaremongering and shame | Kate Womersley

There is no credible evidence linking autism with maternal paracetamol use. But the US president’s ‘tough it out’ message could harm mothers and babies

• Kate Womersley is a doctor and academic specialising in psychiatry

On Monday, Donald Trump, flanked by Robert F Kennedy Jr and the former talkshow host and head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr Mehmet Oz, announced that women should avoid paracetamol (known as acetaminophen or by the brand name Tylenol in the US) throughout pregnancy because of a spurious link with childhood autism.

This political theatre highlights a longstanding and harmful problem: pregnant women, and their babies, are routinely let down by partial, poor-quality and missing medical evidence. Pregnant women deserve better than irresponsible headlines raising fear based on shaky research that has failed to convince the scientific community.

Kate Womersley is a doctor and academic specialising in psychiatry

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Is paracetamol safe during pregnancy and does it have links to autism?

US president’s claims around painkiller also known as Tylenol contradict scientific consensus that drug is entirely safe to take

Donald Trump has urged pregnant women not to take acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol or paracetamol. He claimed it raises the chances of children being autistic.

But the US president has been condemned by experts from across the world, who fear he is deliberately fostering a narrative of distrust that could be dangerous for women.

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Trump’s absurd Tylenol claims heighten the suffering of pregnant women in the US | Moira Donegan

There is no evidence to support the president’s assertions about autism. But they exploit fears that already come with pregnancy

Robert F Kennedy Jr continued his futile search for a single pharmaceutical cause of autism on Monday, when the Trump administration claimed that distorted recent studies and misstated scientific evidence to allege a link between women’s Tylenol use during pregnancy and the development of autism in children. Kennedy has long spoken with disturbing disgust about autistic people, claiming at one press conference that autistic children “destroy families” and “will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date.” He had previously pledged to find the cause of autism by this month.

As part of his apparent quest to eliminate this vast and varied group of people – who do, in fact, pay taxes, hold jobs, play baseball, write poems, go on dates, and function as beloved and caring members of functional families – Kennedy has already sought to restrict access to common vaccines. In June, he fired every member of the advisory committee on immunization practices, an influential group of vaccine experts whose recommendations had long shaped policy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In place of the experts, he reconstituted the panel with a number of vaccine critics and cranks, whose incompetence has led to chaotic meetings and bizarrely changing vaccine recommendations. Donald Trump has recently joined his health secretary in casting aspersions on childhood vaccines – safe and effective treatments that have saved countless lives and are among the more wonderful miracles of human innovation. “It’s too much liquid,” the president said of the early childhood immunizations on Monday. “Too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number. The size of this thing, when you look at it.”

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Wes Streeting rejects Trump claim linking paracetamol and autism

Health secretary joins medical experts in urging pregnant women to ignore US president’s remarks

• UK politics live – latest updates

Wes Streeting has rejected Donald Trump’s claims of a link between taking paracetamol in pregnancy and autism, urging mothers-to-be to ignore the US president’s remarks.

The health secretary challenged Trump’s statements, which medical experts have stressed are not based on evidence, as part of a drive to reassure mothers-to-be in the UK.

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For years I struggled with infertility and loss. Then I had a life-changing call with a psychic

On some level, I realised it was a bit unhinged, writes the author and podcaster Elizabeth Day. But what did I have to lose?

On 29 December 2022, I received a text. ‘Hi mum I’m texting you off a friends phone I’ve smashed mine and their phones about to die, can you WhatsApp my new number x’ I was in a rental car when I got it, my partner at the wheel next to me as we drove down an anonymous stretch of motorway. Both the sky and the road were grey. It was that indeterminate space between Christmas and New Year when the days become sludgy and diffuse; a time when teenagers meet up with their friends to go shopping or gather in each other’s homes and post Snapchats or exchange festive gossip while pretending not to vape. It was the time of waiting – for the next thing to happen, for the promised excitement of New Year’s Eve and snogging underneath leftover mistletoe. So it wasn’t a particularly unusual text to receive, especially not given the trademark adolescent lack of grammar and punctuation.

There was just one thing.

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Digested week: Return of the cassette tape … and maybe the dodo

Plus the right to roam the green and pleasant, and a £1,795-a-night solution to the postpartum blues

An all-party parliamentary group is calling for everyone to be given the right to go wild camping and swimming across our green and pleasant land (and, I suppose our blue and hopefully non-besewaged waters). Apparently we only have the right to roam across 8% of England at the moment, a situation that strikes me as so perfectly us that it should be submitted to the Unesco intangible cultural heritage list immediately if not sooner.

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We’re losing so many mothers to childbirth and genocide. It’s our responsibility to act on both | Jacinda Ardern

We know women give birth during war – and too often, they die. But we must do much more to achieve safety and stability

• Jacinda Ardern is a former prime minister of New Zealand

It was usually when my daughter hadn’t slept that the conversation started. I’d message my friend wondering aloud whether I would get through the day without making some glaring mistake. I was the prime minister of New Zealand. Only the second woman in the world to have a baby while leading a country, and some days were hard.

Yet there was one response, a simple text message from my friend, also deep in the trenches of caregiving, that would stop me in my tracks: “Women give birth during war.”

Jacinda Ardern is a former prime minister of New Zealand

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Systemic racism affects maternity care for black women in England, say MPs

Commons committee finds women’s concerns not taken seriously due to bias, stereotyping and racist assumptions

Black women in England are still facing poorer outcomes in their maternity care due to systemic racism, alongside failures in leadership and data collection, according to a group of MPs.

Across the UK, black women are more than twice as likely to die in childbirth compared with their white counterparts, while babies born to black mothers are at an increased risk of stillbirth.

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Mississippi declares infant deaths emergency as CDC program that could have helped is halted

State forced to stop gathering critical data on pregnancy experiences after Trump administration’s shakeup

The Trump administration’s shakeup of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has forced Mississippi to stop gathering critical data on women’s experiences before, during and after pregnancy – even as the state recently declared a public health emergency over its surging infant mortality rate.

Mississippi has suspended data collection for Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (Prams), a national database that has been integral to policymaking on maternal and infant health for nearly four decades, the Guardian has learned.

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The US town that pays every pregnant woman $1,500: ‘We’re not OK with our babies being born into poverty’

Infants in Rx Kids in Flint, Michigan, saw lower rates of prematurity and other issues, saving millions in NICU visits

When Angela Sintery first learned about Rx Kids, a program for new mothers in her home town of Flint, Michigan, she thought someone must be trying to scam her.

“I had some teacher friends that kept sending me links saying: ‘You need to apply for this. It’s a brand-new program. We think you qualify,’” Sintery said. But it seemed too good to be true.

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Reasons for rise in caesarean births | Letter

Simply blaming women ignores a range of clinical and societal factors that contribute to the increase in medical intervention during birth, says Dr Debbie Garrod

The rise in the rate of medically assisted births in the UK, particularly caesareans, is laid firmly at the feet of women for being older, larger and having more complex medical problems (Report, 11 September). This ignores a range of clinical and societal factors that contribute. Maternal factors play a part, but so does the rise in defensive clinical practice, the loss of midwives’ and obstetricians’ skills and confidence in supporting physiological birth, and the proliferation of misinformation and scare stories on social media that increase parental anxiety.

All these factors have led us to the current crisis, where more than 50% of babies are born with surgical intervention, with no concomitant improvement in maternal or perinatal mortality and with unknown consequences for the health and wellbeing of future generations.
Dr Debbie Garrod
Midwife and antenatal educator, Abingdon, Oxfordshire

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Maternity trousers, complete with baggy sack big enough to hide in: the Edith Pritchett cartoon

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Experience: my babies were born seven weeks apart

After years of miscarriages, I had abandoned the prospect of giving birth. Then, as we prepared to conceive using a surrogate, the impossible happened

The first time I miscarried, I blamed myself. After getting pregnant early on in our relationship, at 34, I had a flash of doubt that my partner Alex and I weren’t ready to be parents. Then, a few weeks later, the pregnancy was over.

My second early loss, just a few months later, hit me harder. We went to a fertility specialist, and the tests on both of us came back clear, but then I couldn’t get pregnant at all.

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How social media tries to exploit your pregnancy | Letters

Responding to an article by Kathryn Wheeler, readers describe how apps ‘found out’ they were pregnant and fed them worrying posts and targeted advertising

I am so glad to see an article published about the impact of social media on pregnant people and new mothers (‘I felt doomed’: social media guessed I was pregnant – and my feed soon grew horrifying, 3 September). I say “mothers” as I noticed my husband was not subjected to the same algorithms that I was. I, too, found it completely overwhelming when I was pregnant and have come off all social media, as the suggested reels I was barraged with did nothing but create anxiety for me as a new parent.

I decided it was toxic messaging that I didn’t need to be privy to. As there are lots of positive things happening on social media – eg groups connecting you with local new mums – it was a shame to miss out on what could have been happening in my area.

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Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death coming for me’ – podcast

The Victorians called it ‘pernicious vomiting of pregnancy’, but modern medicine has offered no end to the torture of hyperemesis gravidarum – until now.

By Abi Stephenson. Read by Nicolette Chin

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‘I watched the bombs fall. I watched the mothers’: how do we grieve the children of Gaza?

Palestine is not a metaphor. And yet – I’ve superimposed every experience of my own mothering these last months on to Palestine

The last time I carried a life, I got to hear her heartbeat exactly three times before it stopped. It was my fifth pregnancy. After the final appointment, the one where the surgeon furrowed her brow as she looked at the ultrasound, I walked down First Avenue. It was winter. It was the year after the pandemic had begun. I was feral with grief. I snapped at strangers, cried in the bodega, etc. I’d spent a year getting pregnant, then unpregnant. I’d wake in the middle of the night and remember: heartbeat, heartbeat. At times, I felt absurd for my grief. I couldn’t ascertain what the metric of a mother was, what goalpost had to be met. Had I met it? Surely grief like this – love like this – had to be more deeply earned?

Three years later, I went under anesthesia again for another egg retrieval. At this point, I had a baby, nearly 18 months old. The surgery was on 6 October. The fertility doctor was cheery at my bedside when I woke; I now had a new crew of eggs on ice. I took a Lyft home. That afternoon, dazed on the couch, I watched sitcoms. The next day, I watched the news break: one urgent report after the other, in English, in Arabic, repeating the same details in different order: surprise attack, dawn, rockets, metal fence bulldozed, hostages taken, raids, combatants, dozens killed, no, hundreds killed, 16-year siege. Then I watched a city go dark. I watched water get cut. I watched the first bombs fall. I watched the mothers.

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‘I felt doomed’: social media guessed I was pregnant – and my feed soon grew horrifying

The algorithm knew I was expecting before I had had a chance to tell my family, friends or GP. At first, I was served up joyful videos. Then the tone became much darker ...

I don’t remember where I was when my TikTok feed showed me a video of a woman holding her stillborn baby, but I remember how I felt. At first, it appeared like any other video of a woman holding a newborn. It was tightly wrapped in blankets while she cradled it in her arms. She was crying, but so are most of the women in these post-birth videos. It wasn’t until I read the caption that I realised what I was looking at. Her baby had been delivered at 23 weeks. I was 22 weeks pregnant. I felt doomed.

My social media algorithms knew I was pregnant before family, friends or my GP. Within 24-hours, they were transforming my feeds. On Instagram and TikTok, I would scroll through videos of women recording themselves as they took pregnancy tests, just as I had done. I “liked”, “saved”, and “shared” the content, feeding the machine, showing it that this is how it could hold my attention, compelling it to send me more. So it did. But it wasn’t long before the joy of those early videos started to transform into something dark.

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Pregnant or a new mum? How to cut costs when you’re expecting a baby

From free prescriptions and essential vitamins, to statutory maternity pay, a lot of assistance is available

Pregnant women in England are entitled to free NHS prescriptions during pregnancy and for 12 months after giving birth, whether they are employed or not. (In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, they are free for everyone.) You need a maternity exemption certificate, which you can get from a midwife, doctor or health visitor.

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Exposure to some Pfas could increase risk of multiple miscarriages – study

Research tracking about 200 women found those who had at least two miscarriages had higher levels of chemicals in their blood

Exposure to some toxic Pfas “forever chemicals” may increase the risk of having multiple miscarriages, new peer-reviewed research has found.

The study, which tracked about 200 women in China, found those who had at least two miscarriages, or unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortions, showed higher levels of several types of Pfas in their blood. The study adds to a long list of reproductive harms associated with Pfas exposure.

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Things for growing bumps in the night: the Edith Pritchett cartoon

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How we get 'baby brain' wrong – video

‘Baby brain’ is often referenced jokingly and dismissively when discussing pregnancy and forgetfulness. But a new brain scan study reveals something more profound: pregnancy does not weaken the brain, it rewires it. Neelam Tailor explores what this means for neuroscience and caregiving, and how little we still understand about women’s health

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Float review – pregnancy is an intergalactic voyage in this poetic solo

Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh
Indra Wilson’s imaginative monologue is a touching exploration of grief and hope through space travel

If you ever need an extended metaphor, just ask Indra Wilson. In a feat of sustained poetic imagination, the playwright describes pregnancy – and pregnancy loss – in terms of space travel. And it is not just a passing analogy but a complete vision, from lift-off to orbit to “Houston, we have a problem”.

Remarkably the metaphor does not wear thin. Rather, it powers a beautiful and touching exploration of an intrepid journey undertaken and never completed.

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US destruction of contraceptives denies 1.4m African women and girls lifesaving care, NGO says

Incineration of $9.7m of contraceptives to lead to 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions, IPPF says

A decision by the US government to incinerate more than $9.7m of contraceptives is projected to result in 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions in five African countries.

More than three-quarters of the contraceptives (77%) were destined for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an NGO global healthcare provider and advocate of sexual and reproductive rights.

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I’m a perinatal psychiatrist. The US is promoting misinformation on SSRIs and pregnancy | Sunny Patel

A recent FDA advisory panel discussion contained falsehoods and overstated risks. That’s dangerous for mothers-to-be

Late last month, the FDA advisory panel – on the heels of the president’s “make America healthy again” executive order scrutinizing psychotropic medications – raised debate around the safety of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in pregnancy. Commonly called antidepressants, these medications are used to treat a range of disorders, and earlier this year a consortium of major mental health organizations pushed back on the administration’s stance.

As a perinatal psychiatrist who sees pregnant and postpartum people struggling with conditions such as depression and anxiety every week, I’m deeply concerned that this public discussion – chaired by the controversial FDA commissioner Marty Makary – shared significant misinformation about mental illness and the treatment modalities (with overly simplified statements denouncing “chemicals” during pregnancy).

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A professor had a $2.4m grant to study Black maternal health. Then Trump was elected

Jaime Slaughter-Acey’s study addresses the high rates of maternal mortality among Black women in the US. Trump’s NIH funding cuts threaten her years-long research

Jaime Slaughter-Acey was in a state of shock and anger when she learned that her National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study on birth outcomes in Black families was cancelled this spring. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill associate professor in epidemiology said that she felt like “the rug was pulled out from under us” when the university called her to share the news. The termination notice said that the study no longer met the agency’s priorities and didn’t promise to increase life expectancy.

“It was heartbreaking,” Slaughter-Acey told the Guardian, “and honestly, infuriating given the high rates of maternal and infant mortality in this country.”

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The pregnancy app that speaks the truth: the Edith Pritchett cartoon

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The harsh reality of ‘extreme morning sickness’ | Letters

Dr Wendy Bryant responds to an article by Abi Stephenson about hyperemesis gravidarum

Abi Stephenson’s article about hyperemesis gravidarum – “extreme morning sickness” – carried me through memories, confirmation, horror and, at last, hope (Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death coming for me’, 31 July).

When I hear of a new pregnancy, I ask after the mother, recalling my two pregnancies in the early 1990s. Both ended with successful delivery, and I can’t imagine life without my two children. But I wonder whether my daughter will have inherited my predisposition to sickness throughout pregnancy, just as I did from my own mother.

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The five kinds of rest – and why they matter for new mothers

When we say ‘rest’, we don’t just mean ‘sleep’, say Sophie Walker and Jodi Wilson. Rest takes many forms and parents should consider building all of them into their lives

We live in a society that champions individualism, productivity and professional and financial success. At every turn we’re encouraged to do it all, which can make us worry that if we’re not being productive, what is our purpose?

Across two years of research, including interviews with more than 60 perinatal health specialists and hundreds of mothers on the Australian Birth Stories podcast, we learned that most mothers enter postpartum with unrealistic expectations of themselves and their bodies. Some are left feeling purposeless and questioning their worth when the work of caring for a baby doesn’t fit with the narrative of a results-driven society.

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Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death was coming for me’

The Victorians called it ‘pernicious vomiting of pregnancy’, but modern medicine has offered no end to the torture of hyperemesis gravidarum – until now

The year my body revolted, I read all 1,296 pages of War and Peace. I did very little else. My body had become stuck in a perpetual rinse cycle, wringing itself out day and night. Becalmed on the sofa, too nauseated to mindlessly scroll, I found an unlikely emergency exit in the bloody Battle of Borodino. In between puking jags, I would prop the book open on my chest, squint at the tiny text, and drift into a Tolstoy-induced torpor. It occurred to me that clouds of saltpetre and the booming of cannon weren’t ideal conditions for a growing baby, but I had to go somewhere.

At 6am my husband left for work and I began another gruelling day on the front; purging viscous pond slime from my empty stomach and keeping up with the Cossacks on their flanking march. In the throes of extreme pregnancy sickness, I found strange comfort in the privations of 19th-century military life; in soaked bandages and musket fire and impromptu field hospital amputations. And even, or especially, in the seeming endlessness of the book itself. For the months that I starved, I lugged my starving Russian comrades with me, from the upholstery-chemical stink of the sofa to the sweet bleach-stink of the bathroom to the seamy oily-skin stink of the bed. Perhaps it was a derangement of dehydration and hormones, but I felt real solidarity with my gangrenous friends on the front – far more than with anyone in a “felt cute” sundress on the What to Expect When You’re Expecting app.

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If we’re serious about protecting pregnancies, we need to stop spraying pesticides | Letters

We must shift the conversation beyond food. These chemicals are in the air women breathe and the homes they live in, says biochemist Molly Shave

As a biochemist trained in environmental health, I was relieved to see coverage of pesticide exposure and pregnancy risk (Exposure to a mix of pesticides raises risk of pregnancy complications, study suggests, 19 July). But one key detail is missing: food is not the main route of exposure for most women, especially in urban environments.

While dietary pesticide levels are regulated, many studies – including urine biomonitoring – have shown less difference in pesticide load between children eating organic and conventional diets in cities than we would expect. Why? Because exposure is happening elsewhere.

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Eating for two: the Edith Pritchett cartoon

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Surrogates at greater risk of new mental illness than women carrying own babies, study finds

Canadian data analysis underscores importance of support during and after pregnancy, researchers say

Surrogates have a greater chance of being newly diagnosed with a mental illness during and after pregnancy than women who carry their own offspring, researchers have found.

In addition, regardless of how they conceived, women with a previous record of mental illness were found to have a higher risk of being diagnosed with such conditions during and after pregnancy than those without.

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