Living with polycystic ovary syndrome can be difficult and lonely | Letters

The NHS needs to provide better understanding and support for people with the condition, says one reader

Thank you for publishing the article about polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff (I was diagnosed with PCOS – and was soon drowning in misinformation, 22 June). It resonated with my experience of diagnosis and frustration at the complete lack of support. I was first tested in my teens and told my blood test was normal. I was retested at 34 when I went to my GP about weight gain and struggling with exhaustion. When I was confirmed to have PCOS I was warned about the health issues, and told the best thing I could do was lose weight, even though this would be very difficult, and to come back when I was struggling to conceive.

Charlie is right: the amount of time and energy I had to put in to try to understand how to be healthy has been a huge drain. Especially sifting through the masses of misinformation. It took me two years and a lot of hard work to understand a diet and exercise plan that worked for me. It’s been difficult and lonely trying to navigate this on my own.

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Equivalent of one child in every British classroom now born via IVF, data shows

Proportion of women giving birth after fertility treatment up by more than a third in a decade, figures reveal

The proportion of women giving birth after fertility treatment in the UK has increased by more than a third in a decade, with the equivalent of one child in every classroom now born as a result of IVF, figures show.

One in 32 births in 2023 were the result of in vitro fertilisation, up 34% from one in 43 in 2013, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

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All parents need someone in their corner like we had. But for First Nations parents, having an Aboriginal midwife is essential | Narelda Jacobs and Karina Natt

Being in an Aboriginal midwifery program meant we had a culturally safe experience from both a First Nations and an LGBTIQA+ perspective

When we first shared our pregnancy news with friends, the advice from those who had been through birth was to get into a midwifery program. But the midwifery programs at our local hospital were full – or so we thought.

When we were offered a place in an Aboriginal midwifery program, we declined. Narelda, a Whadjuk Noongar woman, was not the birth parent – Karina was – and we didn’t want to take the place of someone who might need it more than us. We knew the healthcare system is notoriously culturally unsafe and this racism and discrimination is contributing to the shocking statistic of Indigenous women being three times more likely to die during childbirth.

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Wes Streeting announces investigation into NHS maternity services

Health secretary announces ‘rapid’ national inquiry into failings in NHS care of mothers and babies in England

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The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has announced the launch of a national investigation into NHS maternity services.

The new rapid investigation is intended to provide truth to families suffering harm, as well as driving urgent improvements to care and safety.

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‘Wrapped in culture’: NSW birthing centre next step in long road to better maternity services for Aboriginal mothers

To be built among the trees in South Nowra, the maternity centre will aim to improve clinical outcomes for women and babies by fusing traditional and non-traditional practices

• Read more from our investigation into the maternal health and infant removal crisis facing First Nations women in Australia

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Melanie Briggs is gazing out at a grassy field, swatting away mosquitoes as we walk through the brush and scrub on a sunny autumn afternoon on the New South Wales south coast. We come to a stop amid the knee-length grasses where the tall eucalyptus trees reach up to the blue sky. Here she unfurls her vision for women giving birth on country.

“I can see the first birth here,” she says. “It will happen at night.”

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Birth alerts are meant to help children at risk of abuse. They are routinely used against Aboriginal mothers

Medical professionals are required to report at-risk children to child protective services – but to some agencies ‘just being Black’s a risk’

• Read more from our investigation into the maternal health and infant removal crisis facing First Nations women in Australia

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At the end of 2024, Rachel* was days away from giving birth. Her feet were dangerously swollen and she was sleeping rough outside an Aboriginal support service in the city.

Her reluctance to seek antenatal care meant the usual routine of scurrying between midwives and doctors appointments for ultrasounds, blood tests and screenings was absent.

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Bobbi was denied access to an Aboriginal midwifery program in her last pregnancy – and nearly lost her life

Indigenous women report experiencing racism, inadequate care and lack of consent in maternity wards – and are three times more likely to die during childbirth

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After a life-threatening three-day labour, Bobbi Lockyer woke up alone in a single room in the intensive care unit of a Perth hospital with an IV drip in her arm. She had lost five litres of blood and had been rushed to intensive care for an emergency hysterectomy. Her new baby had been discharged while she was unconscious into the care of her now ex-partner.

“I woke up alone and thought something had happened to my baby,” she says. “I was distraught.”

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The best pregnancy pillows for support and comfort, tested

Our tired mum-to-be put 11 maternity pillows, from wedges to U-shapes, to the test in search of a better night’s sleep

• Parents on the baby gear they wouldn’t go without

It’s a cruel twist that, just when you’re trying to bank some rest before the arrival of a baby, your body and brain conspire to make falling – and staying – asleep more difficult. Hormonal changes, pelvic or back pain, stress and extra bathroom trips are among the delights that can make sleep elusive for pregnant women. As your baby bump grows, general discomfort is a given.

Pregnancy pillows aim to help relieve some of this discomfort by supporting key parts of the body, such as your growing baby bump, back and hips. Many are designed to encourage an optimal pregnancy sleeping position: the NHS recommends sleeping on your side after 28 weeks. That’s due to research suggesting a link between falling asleep on your back and an increased risk of stillbirth – although note that the overall risk is still very low, and there’s no need to worry if you wake up on your back. Just roll over and go back to sleep.

Best pregnancy pillow overall:
Bbhugme pregnancy pillow
_{£159 at Bbhugme}

Best budget pregnancy pillow:
Dreamgenii pregnancy, support and feeding pillow
_{£48.99 at Ebebek}

Best pregnancy pillow for leg support:
Snüz SnuzCurve pregnancy support pillow
_{£84.95 at Snüz}

Best for temperature control:
Simba extra support body pillow
_{£109 at Simba Sleep}

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Monash IVF admits second bungled embryo implant, this time at Victorian clinic

Patient’s own embryo instead of partner’s was ‘incorrectly transferred’, fertility company tells ASX, months after revealing separate Queensland clinic error

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A second bungled embryo implant at Monash IVF has sparked a new investigation and the expansion of a review into the first incident, which led to a woman unknowingly giving birth to a stranger’s baby.

Monash IVF said in a statement on Tuesday that on 5 June “a patient’s own embryo was incorrectly transferred to that patient, contrary to the treatment plan which designated the transfer of an embryo of the patient’s partner”.

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Contraception warning over weight-loss drugs after dozens of pregnancies

UK watchdog has had 40 reports relating to pregnancies in people using drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro

Women using weight-loss drugs have been urged to use effective contraception after dozens have reported becoming pregnant while taking the medication.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued its first alert to the UK public regarding contraception and weight-loss medications after it received 40 reports relating to pregnancies while using drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.

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‘The high commissioner found us a bassinet!’ Jacinda Ardern on bringing her baby to the UN

New Zealand’s former PM made history as the first world leader to attend the general assembly meeting with a newborn. In the second extract from her book, she writes about her worry that the image would become a banner for ‘women doing it all’

• Read our exclusive interview with Jacinda Ardern here
• ‘I was pregnant and unwed. I was also new to the job’: read the first instalment of her memoir here

Seventy-two hours after our daughter, Neve, was born, Clarke and I held a press conference to introduce her to the world. We planned the whole thing before I gave birth, and I’d been sure it would be fine. Kate Middleton did it, I’d thought. I can make it work.

Now that I’d just given birth, it did not feel fine.

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‘Men are not expected to be interested in babies’: how society lets new fathers – and their families – down

Around one in 10 fathers experience serious mental health issues in the period before and after their child is born. What can be done?

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Dean Rogut was holding it together.

He had become a father for the first time, but it had not gone to plan. At 12 weeks pregnant, his wife was put on bed rest. At 24 weeks, their son, Max, was born.

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On World Hunger Day, make maternal nutrition a government priority | Letter

Former development ministers Valerie Amos, Lynne Featherstone and Liz Sugg call on leaders to commit to ensuring that women and children have access to good nutrition

Malnutrition and hunger are soaring across the world, leading to hundreds of millions of people suffering and posing a major threat to global security. Access to good nutrition is foundational to development. Without it, children cannot reach their full potential, physically or cognitively. As a result, economies are undermined and less productive, poverty is entrenched and instability spreads.

Women and girls are disproportionately impacted. One billion adolescent girls and women worldwide are suffering from malnutrition because they typically eat last and least. This has a generational impact as malnutrition passes from mother to child. Improving maternal nutrition is critical to arresting global malnutrition and building a healthier and more secure world.

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What to say – and what not to say – to friends, or colleagues having IVF

It’s all too easy to say something crass or insensitive to someone who is going through IVF – as I discovered when I was. Here’s how to open your mouth without putting your foot in it

It is estimated that one in seven couples in the UK will experience difficulties conceiving, and many will go on to have fertility treatment. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) reports that more than 1.3m IVF cycles have been performed in the UK since 1991. I was 32 when I first underwent treatment, and I didn’t know anyone else who had been through it. Six years on, a quick headcount of IVF-enduring friends almost reaches double figures; we can no longer consider it rare. If you have friends, family or colleagues in their 30s and 40s, it is highly likely that some will be having IVF (that is not to say that no one younger will be – it is just statistically less likely: the average age is now 36).

It can be difficult to know what to say to someone who has shared that this is their path to potential parenthood – the outcome possibly exciting, possibly heartbreaking. From my experience of that challenging time, there are comments that can boost and others that, however well intentioned, can sting.

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‘Difficult choices’: aid cuts threaten effort to reduce maternal deaths in Nigeria

Staff at a UN-run clinic in country’s north-east worry about growing funding gaps amid dismantling of USAID

At a UN-run antenatal clinic in a camp for people displaced by Boko Haram, the colours stand out like the bellies of the pregnant women. Abayas in neon green, dark brown and shades of yellow graze against the purple and white uniforms of nurses attending to them in the beige-orange halls of the maternal healthcare facility.

Within the clinic in Maiduguri in north-east Nigeria, midwives and nurses are handing out free emergency home delivery kits, “dignity kits” for sexual abuse survivors and reusable sanitary pads to curb exploitation of young girls who cannot afford them.

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Delay in improving NHS maternity care ‘costs lives of hundreds of babies a year’

Baby charities’ report shows that high rates of stillbirth and neonatal death are not reducing quickly enough

A delay in improving NHS maternity care is costing the lives of hundreds of babies a year, analysis has shown.

At least 2,500 fewer babies would have died since 2018 if hospitals had managed to reduce the number of of stillbirths and neonatal and maternal deaths in England, as the government falls behind on its commitment to halve the rate of those three events.

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UK women driven to unregulated sperm donors by high treatment costs, experts say

One unregistered sperm donor who claims to have fathered 180 children has sought access to four children in the UK

The high costs of having a child using a sperm donor are driving poor and marginalised women in the UK to use unregulated online services rife with “weirdos” and misogynists in order to have a child, experts have said.

In a ruling released on Wednesday, a Middlesbrough family court judge said a man who claimed to have fathered more than 180 children across the world as an unregistered sperm donor could not have custody of one of the children.

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Having a child has been both the most transformative and mundane experience of my life | Rebecca Varcoe

Parenthood has opened the door to a new kind of love – one not necessarily more sacred or pure than the love for my friends, parents and husband

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Two years ago I fell pregnant and within five weeks I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a medical condition that causes extreme nausea and vomiting. It lasted my entire pregnancy and that year was (almost) the worst of my life. Now, I keep being told the relief of no longer being sick is the main reason I enjoyed the first year of my child’s life so much.

Shortly after my baby was born, I started seeing social media content about Charli xcx’s song “I think about it all the time” and its articulation of the apprehension many women have about becoming mothers. I have recently started back at work and miss my child terribly. It’s the unhappiest I have been since she was born, around the same time Chappell Roan said none of her friends with children were happy.

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Rihanna and A$AP Rocky reveal they are expecting third child at Met Gala

Barbadian singer-actor appeared at fashion event visibly pregnant, with Rocky saying: ‘It feels amazing, you know’

At a historic edition of the Met Gala with tons of news-making moments, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky once again stole the show.

The power couple is expecting their third child, the rapper A$AP Rocky revealed.

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How sure was I that I wanted a baby? About 55% certain

I thought the two sides of me – the one who wants children and the one who doesn’t – would duke it out till death

The light in the bookstore bathroom was dim. Even so, I could see the blood on the toilet paper. I wiped some more to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, and then I stood up, grabbing on to the porcelain sink so I wouldn’t fall.

Suddenly, I understood. I didn’t want to lose my baby. I wanted to be this baby’s mother more than anything I’d ever wanted in the world. I would do anything in my power to keep it alive. The trouble: there wasn’t much I could do.

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NHS in England failing to record ethnicity of those who sue over maternity care

‘Shocking blind spot’ in data collection comes despite ‘well-documented racial disparities in maternity care’

The NHS is facing criticism for not recording the ethnicity of people who sue it over poor maternity care, despite black, Asian and minority ethnic women experiencing much greater harm during childbirth.

Health experts, patient safety campaigners and lawyers claim racial disparities in maternity care are so stark that NHS bodies in England must start collating details of people who take legal action to help ensure services improve.

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What is America’s pro-natalism movement really about? | Moira Donegan

The movement isn’t actually interested in making motherhood easier by offering things like affordable childcare. So what is their aim?

Malcolm and Simone Collins, the pro-natalist couple who are reportedly consulting the Donald Trump administration on how to encourage American women to have more babies, are something of a deliberate heel: they often seem to be attempting to provoke the ire of their audience. The couple espouse the pro-natalism that is sweeping the political right with an explicit eugenicist tilt (self-styled “elites,” the Collins scan their IVF-generated embryos before their pregnancies, in an effort to select for features like high IQ). They dress in the severe black outfits of German modernists, with an emphasis on the “German” part, and wear large, unusually shaped eyeglasses; Simone has also taken to wearing large bonnets that make her look like Mother Goose, or, in their less subtle versions, like an extra on The Handmaid’s Tale.”The pair met on Reddit.

The founders of a pro-birth organization, the Collins’ assert that there is a crisis of declining birth rates in America. (In reality, the slight dip in America’s birth rate is almost entirely due to the decline of teen pregnancies.) They aim to fix this in part by breeding as many of their own children as possible: they currently have four, blameless innocents they have cruelly burdened with names like “Industry Americus” and “Torsten Savage.” But they seem to be more adept at siring media profiles of themselves, of which there have been many. The couple insist upon their own genetic superiority, like a breeding-obsessed Boris and Natasha. They aim to advance a future of more babies and – by their own terms – better ones: what Simone calls “genetically selected humans”. They must be doing it on purpose: no one could become so off-putting by accident.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist.

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Number of births in US increased by 1% in 2024, according to CDC data

Small increase amounts to 3.6 million births and an increase in the women aged 40-44 giving birth

The number of births in the US increased slightly in 2024 to roughly 3.6 million, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The small increase of 1% in the number of births comes amid a long-term decline that began during the Great Recession, in about 2008. The provisional data was released on Wednesday.

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Microplastics found in human ovary follicular fluid for the first time

Peer-reviewed study’s findings raises fresh question on the toxic substances’ impact on fertility

Microplastics have been found for the first time in human ovary follicular fluid, raising a new round of questions about the ubiquitous and toxic substances’ potential impact on women’s fertility.

The new peer-reviewed research published in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety checked for microplastics in the follicular fluid of 18 women undergoing assisted reproductive treatment at a fertility clinic in Salerno, Italy, and detected them in 14.

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Black maternal health is about more than survival – it’s about thriving | Venice Haynes

Too often, healthcare ignores our pain and fails to value our lives. But communities are banding together to meet our needs

Maternal deaths have recently dropped in the US – that is, unless you’re Black.

Black women continue to face the highest rates of maternal mortality in our country. To be Black, pregnant and hopeful in the US is to hold on to life with a fierce and unyielding grip against devastating odds.

Venice Haynes is a social and behavioral scientist with more than 17 years of public health experience. She is the senior director of research and community engagement for United States of Care

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Rogue doctors stole one woman’s eggs to get another patient pregnant. What happened next is an unlikely tale of friendship against the odds

When it emerged that a fertility clinic had made one woman pregnant with another’s baby, Renée Ballou and Carole LieberWilkins were advised to ‘lawyer up’. Instead they did something extraordinary – even as one raised the other’s biological child

Renée Ballou thought she was a lucky person. In the 1980s, she was living in a beautiful home an hour’s drive from Los Angeles, with a job she loved, a happy marriage and a young son. Everything had always felt so easy for Renée – until she began trying for a second child. Two years on, she still wasn’t pregnant. “I was pretty much used to getting what I wanted,” Renée, now 67, tells me with a sad smile. “It was very stressful.”

Along with her husband, Wesley, Renée went through a battery of tests, followed by years of surgeries, supplements and hormones. Her gynaecologist referred them to Dr Sergio Stone, a fertility specialist at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in Orange County, for more treatment. They tried artificial insemination – first with Wesley’s sperm, then with a donor – without success. Their son, Matthew, was four when they started trying for a sibling for him; by 1987 he was 10. It was lonely and emotionally and physically gruelling. But Renée refused to give up. “I wanted that baby more than anything.”

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Woman gives birth to stranger’s baby after IVF bungle in Brisbane

Mistake at Queensland fertility care clinic results in woman unknowingly giving birth to another patient’s baby after embryos mixed up

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A woman has given birth to another person’s baby after their fertility care provider mixed up their embryos.

Monash IVF, which operates across Australia, has apologised after a patient at one of its Brisbane clinics had an embryo incorrectly transferred to her, meaning she gave birth to a child of another woman.

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A lifesaving midwife in Afghanistan: Noriko Hayashi’s best photograph

‘This woman was nine months pregnant but had never had a checkup. Anisa is listening to the baby’s heartbeat with a stethoscope. After foreign aid cuts, including Trump’s, she is now out of a job’

My home country, Japan, is one of the safest places in the world to give birth: it has one of the very lowest mortality rates in Asia. A few years ago I had the opportunity to work on a story about midwives in Japan, and I became very interested in their role. In November 2023 I travelled to Badakhshan province in the northeast of Afghanistan, the country with the highest maternal mortality rate in Asia. I wanted to meet midwives there and see how they support women.

The Badakhshan province is far from Kabul, with rugged terrain and poor transportation and medical infrastructure. In winter, heavy snowfall blocks roads for months. Women who are about to give birth are sometimes carried on donkeys escorted by family members or neighbours on multi-day trips to clinics. The literacy rate for women there is extremely low compared to other provinces – less than 10% – which is partly why there’s a serious shortage of midwives. This combination of geographic, social and cultural factors means there are often delays responding to emergencies, and deaths from complications like excessive bleeding or infection, which might otherwise have been preventable.

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Woman becomes first UK womb transplant recipient to give birth – video

Surgeons are hailing an ‘astonishing’ medical breakthrough as a woman became the first in the UK to give birth after a womb transplant. Grace Davidson, 36, who was a teenager when diagnosed with a rare condition that meant she did not have a uterus, said she and her husband, Angus, 37, had been given ‘the greatest gift we could ever have asked for’. They named their five-week-old girl Amy Isabel – after Grace’s sister, Amy Purdie, who donated her womb during an eight-hour operation in 2023, and Isabel Quiroga, a surgeon who helped perfect the transplant technique. More than 100 womb transplants have been carried out worldwide, with at least 50 babies thought to have been born as a result

• Woman becomes first UK womb transplant recipient to give birth

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Woman becomes first UK womb transplant recipient to give birth

Grace Davidson gives birth to baby Amy Isabel after receiving her sister’s womb in 2023

Surgeons are hailing an “astonishing” medical breakthrough as a woman became the first in the UK to give birth after a womb transplant.

Grace Davidson, 36, who was a teenager when diagnosed with a rare condition that meant she did not have a uterus, said she and her husband, Angus, 37, had been given “the greatest gift we could ever have asked for”.

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Aid cuts could have ‘pandemic-like effects’ on maternal deaths, WHO warns

Loss of funding could undo progress in reducing deaths in pregnancy and childbirth, especially in war zones, says UN

More women risk dying in pregnancy and childbirth because of aid cuts by wealthy countries, which could have “pandemic-like effects”, UN agencies have warned.

Pregnant women in conflict zones are the most vulnerable, and face an “alarmingly high” risk that is already five times greater than elsewhere, according to a new UN report on trends in maternal mortality.

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Trump administration eviscerates maternal and child health programs

Alarm over ‘the health of the nation’s children’ follows federal workforce cuts by health secretary RFK Jr

Multiple maternal and child health programs have been eliminated or hollowed out as part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) layoffs, prompting alarm and disbelief among advocates working to make Americans healthier.

The fear and anxiety come as a full accounting of the cuts remains elusive. Federal health officials have released only broad descriptions of changes to be made, rather than a detailed accounting of the programs and departments being eviscerated.

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Charges dropped against US woman found unconscious after miscarriage

Selena Maria Chandler-Scott was arrested in Georgia after emergency responders were called in to treat her

The charges against a Georgia woman who was found bleeding and unconscious after a miscarriage were dropped on Friday.

The woman, 24-year-old Selena Maria Chandler-Scott, was arrested late last month after emergency responders were called in to treat her, according to a police press release.

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The anti-women ‘fertilization president’ who wants to have it both ways

Trump’s executive order supposedly expanding IVF access offered nothing concrete beyond a weird nickname for himself

Donald Trump has clearly been spending far too much time with Elon-I-offer-my-sperm-to-everyone-who-crosses-my-path-Musk. It seems like the creepy billionaire’s insemination obsession has rubbed off on Trump: the legally defined sexual predator is now calling himself “the fertilization president”.

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Just Another Girl on the IRT review – Leslie Harris takes on race, sex and class in 90s indie gem

Ariyan A Johnson stars as the back-talking, fourth wall-breaking high schooler who falls pregnant in Harris’s rough and ready drama

There’s an undimmed freshness, warmth and freewheeling energy in this 1992 indie gem, and its director Leslie Harris – whose career since has chiefly involved writing and teaching – deserves a far bigger presence in US film history. Ariyan A Johnson plays Chantel, a young Black American high schooler who lives with her stressed parents and two kid brothers in Brooklyn (in an era before its gentrification) and rides the subway’s IRT Eastern Parkway line.

Chantel is getting great grades in school, and plans to be a doctor, but is addicted to talking back to the teachers and won’t restrain herself, even when she’s sent to the principal’s office. Her relationship with her mother and father is just as fraught – and as far as dating goes, Chantel is not going to sell herself short. And when she finally has sex with her boyfriend Tyrone (Kevin Thigpen), dizzied by his ownership of a Jeep – so she doesn’t have to travel on the IRT – it ends in pregnancy and further disasters. Tyrone gets 500 bucks from his uncle to get her an abortion, but Chantel blows it all in one afternoon on a shopping spree with a friend, in deep denial about what is happening to her, a set piece of black-comic calamity that only intensifies the compassion you feel for her. And when the baby comes, a further existential crisis is in store.

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Having a baby with your best mate – podcast

Nicola Slawson on her decision to have a baby with her best friend, Tom, rather than a romantic partner

Nicola Slawson, a journalist and author of Single: Living a Complete Life on Your Own Terms, has been single for 10 years. She didn’t think it was going to be possible for her to have a baby. She had looked into solo parenthood, but didn’t think she wouldd be able to afford it.

Then, she became friends with Tom Hayes. He worked at the Hive, an arts centre in Shrewsbury where Nicola was a trustee.

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Surrogate parents too afraid to return to Italy after ‘procreative tourism’ law

The gay couple, who travelled to the US for the birth of their son, could be among the first Italians prosecuted under a new ban on domestic surrogacy

The Italian parents of a child who was recently born in the US via surrogacy say they are too afraid to return home since Giorgia Meloni’s government enacted the west’s most restrictive law against what she described as “procreative tourism”.

The gay couple could be among the first Italians to be prosecuted under the law, enacted in early December, which extended an outright ban on domestic surrogacy by making it a universal crime that transcends borders, putting them on a par with terrorists, paedophiles and war criminals.

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The Guardian view on microplastics: harmful pollution must be curbed | Editorial

New evidence of particles damaging crops strengthens the case for an international plastics treaty

New and concerning findings from environmental scientists about the impact of microplastics on crops and marine algae add to a growing body of evidence about the disruption caused to living systems by plastic pollution. The results, from a team led by Prof Huan Zhong at Nanjing University, China, are not definitive and require corroboration. But analysis showing that plastics could limit photosynthesis (the conversion of sunlight into chemical energy) must be taken seriously. If the researchers are correct, and staple crops are being reduced by about 12%, there are huge implications for global agriculture and food supplies. This could inject new urgency into efforts to tackle plastic pollution.

There is no single route by which microplastic particles inhibit plants from growing. The overall effect is attributed to a combination of blocked sunlight and nutrients, and damage to soil and cells. This can lead to reduced levels of chlorophyll – the pigment enabling photosynthesis. When the researchers modelled the crop losses caused by an effect of this size, they found Asia was hardest hit, potentially contributing to food insecurity and worsening hunger.

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Maternity Service by Emma Barnett review – baby steps

An energetic attempt to reimagine maternity leave swerves hard thinking about social reform

Something is rotten in the state of British motherhood. It starts during pregnancy: in September, a safety watchdog found conditions at nearly half of NHS maternity units to be inadequate. It continues after childbirth: last year, the UK’s maternal death rate reached a 20-year high; when babies are between six weeks and a year old, the leading cause of maternal death is suicide. It carries on at work: in one survey, 52% of women said they experienced some form of discrimination while pregnant or on maternity leave.

But reading Maternity Service, a slim new volume from BBC Today programme presenter Emma Barnett, you wouldn’t gather that anything was seriously amiss. At least, nothing a new mother armed with the right polo neck, stretchy trousers, hip playlist and a stiff beverage couldn’t gamely tackle.

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‘I was devastated’: MP hopes her story will help improve maternity care for disabled women

Exclusive: Marie Tidball tells of her experiences with NHS as report finds 44% higher risk of stillbirth for disabled women

When doctors tried to work out whether Marie Tidball would need a specially designed birth plan, one asked her to lie fully clothed on the bed and spread her legs in the air so they could see how far they could open.

The incident was one of several occasions when Tidball, now a Labour MP, felt neglected during her pregnancy and early motherhood because of the NHS’s failure to adapt on account of her physical disabilities. Tidball has physical impairments affecting all four of her limbs and had major surgeries on both her hips and legs as a child.

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Pregnant offenders in England and Wales could be spared jail under new guidelines

Changes to sentencing guidance will also apply to mothers of children under one year old

Pregnant women should not be sent to jail unless it is “unavoidable”, according to new sentencing guidelines.

The guidance, published on Wednesday by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, has been hailed by campaigners as a huge milestone. It outlines a raft of new measures to stop criminals who are pregnant or mothers of children under one year old being imprisoned.

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British parents to gain right to bereavement leave after miscarriage

Exclusive: Women and partners who suffer pregnancy loss before 24 weeks to be entitled in England, Wales and Scotland

Parents in Britain will be granted a right to bereavement leave after suffering a miscarriage as part of Labour’s workers’ rights reforms, the Guardian can disclose.

In a change to the law made via the employment rights bill, mothers and their partners will be given the right to two weeks of bereavement leave if they have suffered a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks’ gestation.

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Experience: I donated my uterus to a stranger – now we’re close friends

When her son was born, it felt like another member of our family had arrived

One day in June 2019, I was getting ready for work when a story on TV caught my attention. A woman was talking about donating her womb to a stranger. She explained why she’d decided to give someone the chance to experience pregnancy. As a mother of two, I was blown away.

At lunch I was glued to my phone, reading everything I could about the procedure: how the first successful uterus transplant had taken place in Sweden in 2013, and how the operation had been carried out in the US since 2016. How it was helping women who had lost their uteri due to cancer, or never developed one because of the congenital condition Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH).

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‘I was causing harm’: author Helen Jukes on motherhood and our polluted bodies

In her latest book, Mother Animal, the writer gives a personal account of the impact of ‘forever chemicals’ on her and her child during and after pregnancy

When Helen Jukes told her friends she was writing about motherhood and pollution, they advised her against it and warned she might make pregnant people more anxious than they already were. But she disagreed. Mother Animal, a personal account of Jukes’ pregnancy and early years of motherhood, details her growing realisation of how contaminated her body, and her baby, have become. And it’s something she thinks all would-be parents should be more aware of. There are chemicals from human industry in breast milk, amniotic fluid and bones, she writes. Toxicologists have found “forever chemicals” in embryos and foetuses at “every stage of pregnancy … in lung tissues, in livers”. It is inescapable.

Yet it is spoken about far too little. “I find it quite disrespectful to think that mothers wouldn’t be capable of handling [this] information,” she says when we meet at her home on the edge of the Peak District.

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I became absorbed in strangers’ fertility journeys online

What started as curiosity would turn into an emotional investment – and eventually, a lifeline

A few nights ago, my phone lit up with a TikTok notification: “WE’RE PREGNANT”. The message wasn’t from a friend. It was from an Australian couple, complete strangers. But social media knows me well because I felt something sharp and bright – joy and relief – for people I will never meet.

It’s strange to feel deeply for someone you’ve never spoken to, whose life is about as geographically far from yours as possible. But I was thrilled to see this pregnancy announcement, shared with millions, from someone I only knew through a few carefully curated moments. As someone who is fundamentally nosy – I will never not notice a “baby on board” badge or make up backstories for strangers – social media has always offered an irresistible window into other people’s lives.

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‘Alarming’ data reveals high diabetes risk for pregnant women in English jails

Freedom of information requests show that female prisoners are three times more likely to suffer gestational diabetes

Pregnant women in prison in England are three times more likely to be ­diagnosed with gestational ­diabetes than those on the outside, according to “alarming” new data.

Figures obtained through freedom of information (FoI) requests to NHS trusts providing healthcare to women’s prisons in England found 12% of women receiving care relating to pregnancy in 2023 were diagnosed with the condition, triple the national figure of 4%.

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The pill hasn’t been improved in years. No wonder women are giving up on it | Martha Gill

When contraception has stagnated for decades, it is hardly surprising it’s fallen victim to culture wars and a wellness cult

Something is changing when it comes to contraception. Lots of people aren’t using it. Last week we heard that this includes a third of young Irish people. Meanwhile, there has been a significant rise in abortions in England and Wales. Prescriptions for the contraceptive pill in England dropped from 432,600 in 2014 to 188,500 in 2021. And this month data from abortion clinics found that demand is being fuelled by women coming off the pill and using natural methods instead.

When the study compared contraception used by women seeking abortions in 2018 and in 2023, it found that the proportion using smartphones to track their menstrual cycle had increased from 0.4% to 2.5%. The use of hormonal contraception among this group fell from 19% to 11%, while the group not using any form of contraception when they became pregnant increased from 50% to 70%.

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All the president’s friends, from Natalie Harp and Daniel Penny to Andrew Tate

There are three tried-and-tested strategies for getting into Donald Trump’s inner circle, from adoration to misogyny

There are three tried-and-tested strategies for getting into Donald Trump’s inner circle. No 1: be young, blond and so obsessed with the president that even the Secret Service think it’s kinda weird. That strategy certainly seems to have worked out well for Natalie Harp, a former far-right cable host who is now an official aide to Trump.

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Prayer and prosecutions: the US ‘hate group’ waging war over Britain’s abortion clinic buffer zones

Anti-abortion campaigners cheer as JD Vance brands safe zones an attack on ‘liberties of religious Britons’

Rachael Clarke remembers life before buffer zones. Almost every day, the head of staff at the UK’s biggest abortion provider would get emails from staff worried about protesters outside clinics – and women crying in the waiting room.

Some of the protesters had huge placards with graphic images of foetuses. Others held candlelit vigils and said prayers. One scattered baby clothes in the bushes. “We had every­thing from people telling women that having an abortion was putting their baby in a meat grinder to people following nurses down the road in the dark telling them they were killing babies,” says Clarke.

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‘A scary time to be a scientist’: how medical research cuts will hurt the maternal mortality crisis

Republican-run states may see worst fallout from slashes to NIH medical funding as maternal mortality climbs in US

On Tuesday, a few days after the Trump administration announced its plan to slash billions of dollars in funding for biomedical and behavioral research, an investigator at a maternal health research center in Pennsylvania told Dr Meghan Lane-Fall that the cuts may lead her to leave academia altogether.

Lane-Fall urged her not to make any sudden moves. “It’s not like nothing has happened. No one’s threatened her job,” said Lane-Fall, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “But if she looks six months down the line, it looks uncertain.”

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When my daughter’s pregnancy was on the line, it felt like history was repeating itself…

Joanna Moorhead recalls her daughter’s difficult birth as she watchers her go through the same thing 32 years later

It was a routine antenatal appointment with many weeks still to go until the birth. “Things aren’t quite as we’d hope,” said the midwife, a worried look on her face. “You need to go straight to hospital.”

The date was 8 April 1992. But also, it was 1 August 2024. The bump in 1992 was mine; the baby, who would be born the following day, at 29 weeks’ gestation (“term” is 40 weeks) was my daughter Rosie. The bump in 2024 was hers: 32 years on, history was repeating itself.

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Sorry, Lily Collins, but when people outsource childbirth, their motives really count | Martha Gill

Whether it’s infertility, to save a career or pure altruism, is there ever a reason that can morally justify surrogacy?

An online row last week underlines something we all know but which many prefer to ignore. There is something not right about surrogacy. The furore started with an Instagram post by Lily Collins: a picture of her new daughter, Tove, in a little basket, under which the Emily in Paris actor expressed “endless gratitude for our incredible surrogate”. Reaction split along predictable lines – those in favour of surrogacy, and those against.

What was striking was that it also split along another fissure: Collins’s possible motives. It was OK, some felt, to use a surrogate if you have infertility problems. But not in order to keep your figure, help your career, or because pregnancy is taxing and you are rich enough to outsource it.

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Racial gap widened in deaths among US mothers around childbirth in 2023

Black women died at rate nearly 3.5 times higher than white women, CDC data shows

Black women in the US died at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than white women around the time of childbirth in 2023, as maternal mortality fell below pre-pandemic levels overall but racial gaps widened, according to federal health data released Wednesday.

In 2021 and 2022, the maternal death rate for Black women was about 2.6 times higher than white women.

The maternal death rate for white women dropped from 19 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022 to 14.5 per 100,000 in 2023.

The rate for Black women went from 49.5 to a little above 50, though the report says that increase was not statistically significant.

The rate for Hispanic women dropped from about 17 to about 12.

The rate for Asian Americans fell from about 13 to about 11.

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Cuny graduate school rolls back protections for pregnant students

Move comes amid Trump’s overturn of Title IX guidance, limiting schools’ liability in sexual misconduct cases

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A graduate school at the City University of New York (Cuny), a university with 25 colleges spread across New York City, has rolled back rules meant to protect the rights of pregnant students, the school said on Tuesday in an email obtained by the Guardian.

The change came as a consequence of a recent Trump administration move that limits schools’ liability in sexual misconduct cases, according to the email.

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Microplastics in placentas linked to premature births, study suggests

Tiny plastic pollution more than 50% higher in placentas from preterm births than in those from full-term births

A study has found microplastic and nanoplastic pollution to be significantly higher in placentas from premature births than in those from full-term births.

The levels were much higher than previously detected in blood, suggesting the tiny plastic particles were accumulating in the placenta. But the higher average levels found in the shorter pregnancies were a “big surprise” for the researchers, as longer terms could be expected to lead to more accumulation.

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I am a midwife in a NSW hospital. This is what an ordinary day looks like | Oceane Campbell

I can give women life-saving medications and resuscitate babies, yet we are still the lowest paid of our profession in the country

It’s the start of my shift as a midwife in a New South Wales hospital. I feel like I am doing a lot for my $45 per hour. I am caring for a woman in the throes of labour. Her eyes are glassy, her vocalisations frantic. She is in transition, a time in labour you can feel terrified and out of control. I hold her and ground her with my well-practised voice, refined from more than 10 years of experience.

I set up a baby Resuscitaire in case it is needed. I document heart rates and clean up body fluids while also educating a student working with me. We write down vital signs and draw up drugs ready to administer. Do you know that midwives can initiate dosages of morphine, antibiotics and other drugs without having to bother a doctor?

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Katie Price: Making Babies review – truly repugnant television

This documentary about Price and her partner’s attempt to have a child may have spawned acres of coverage, but there is no delving into the agonies of infertility, which makes it depthless, thoughtless and downright offensive

The relentless belligerence of Katie Price is one of the wonders of the modern world. She could start a fight in an empty house. It’s fascinating.

In Katie Price: Making Babies, her ire is directed at her fiance Carl (“I love Kate. She gives me a headache. A migraine. But I’m still here.”), the ravages of time, the female reproductive system and the idea of being thwarted by the accumulated evidence, in the form of scans, blood tests and samples taken by her doctors, that the general laws of a 45-year-old (at the time of filming) woman’s biology apply to her too.

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UK women who suffer miscarriage should get two weeks’ paid leave, MPs say

Government urged to introduce universal right of bereavement leave as ‘time to grieve’ early pregnancy loss

Women who suffer a miscarriage should get two weeks of paid leave from work so they can mourn the loss of their baby, an influential group of MPs has said today.

The government is under mounting pressure to introduce a new right of bereavement leave for women across the UK who lose their baby before 24 weeks’ gestation. That happens 250,000 times every year.

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Reliance on fertility apps on rise in England and Wales, study shows

Trend away from hormonal contraception corresponds to rise in abortion rates, say researchers

Women in England and Wales are increasingly ditching the pill in favour of fertility-tracking apps, raising the risk of a rise in unplanned pregnancies, a study suggests.

Researchers concluded there had been a shift in attitudes towards contraception in the last five years, from “more reliable” hormonal options, such as the pill and the implant, to “fertility awareness-based methods”.

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I am a rational liberal, yet a question about the sanctity of life floored me | Sonia Sodha

Hosting a radio show on ethics made me see that moral instinct isn’t the inferior cousin of reason

A decade ago, I’d have proudly – and smugly – donned my “I’m a liberal” badge. What’s not to like about liberalism, the idea that people are free to live their lives the way they want, so long as they’re not harming anyone else, and the state promotes equality of opportunity through a decent welfare state? It’s the politics of liberalism that paved the way for legislative reforms on race discrimination and gay marriage that have gone hand in hand with declining levels of social prejudice.

I still regard these as important markers of progress. But today I feel sheepish about how simplistic my worldview used to be. Liberalism has much to offer, but there are risks in embracing it as an overarching political philosophy without a degree of humility about its shortcomings: its hollow silence over how to navigate knotty ethical issues where society needs some kind of shared understanding. This queasiness about morality means liberals sometimes look the other way when others smuggle in controversial ethical assumptions under the guise of choice and autonomy.

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New mothers don’t need to be bombarded with unsolicited advice – they need reassurance | Jodi Wilson

When we talk about the difficult parts of motherhood we provide emotional cushioning for what can be a deeply challenging experience

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In the discombobulation of postpartum, reassurance is what all new mothers need.

When sleep deprived and aching, when doubt spirals are common and overwhelm rife, a new mother will look to those who have mothered before her. There is nothing more comforting in the inevitable haze of milk and tears than someone saying: “I think you’re right, and you’re doing really well.”

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We can tell the truth about pregnancy without scaring women to death – in fact, it’s vital that we do | Emily Oster

Many women have no idea about the potential complications until they happen. Without discussion there is no treatment or prevention

There is an inherent tension between two basic facts about childbirth. On the one hand, it has happened billions and billions of times in the course of human history and it has been successful in a wide range of settings, from neolithic caves to state-of-the-art hospitals. On the other, it is objectively dangerous in many cases.

This tension can be felt in much of the modern popular discourse on birth. On my Instagram feed, there are depictions of unmedicated home births in a bathtub surrounded by flowers and a caption about how birth has got too medicalised. Some commenters are quick to note that, in their case, having that medical help was life-saving. To put it most starkly: yes, people have been giving birth at home for millions of years, but a lot of them died.

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