A third of UK women who died during or after pregnancy known to children’s services, study finds

Researchers call for better coordinated and holistic care for women who often come from abusive backgrounds

A third of women who have died during, or in the year after, pregnancy were known to children’s social care services, with a fifth of these deaths being the result of suicide, according to research which is the first of its kind.

Between 2014 and 2022, 1,451 women died during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth, with 420 of these women having been in contact with children’s social care services, according to analysis of data from the maternal, newborn, and infant clinical outcome review programme provided by MBBRACE-UK.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/dcgIXDh

A rogue fertility clinic, stolen eggs, and an unlikely friendship – podcast

Jenny Kleeman reports on the IVF clinic in the US that stole women’s eggs to get other women pregnant

In 1995, Renée Ballou received a call from a reporter at the Orange County Register. The reporter asked if she was alone, and suggested she would need to sit down.

Ballou says: “She said, we’re breaking a story tomorrow. We have some records here that the FBI has released, and we have every indication that your eggs were stolen and that you have a child that was born from the stolen eggs.”

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/zpaVAXj

Parents in Britain to be granted bereavement leave after miscarriage

Mothers and partners will gain the legal right if they lose a baby before 24 weeks, in Labour workers’ rights reform

Parents in Britain will be granted a right to bereavement leave after suffering a miscarriage as part of Labour’s workers’ rights reforms, it has been confirmed.

In a change to the law made via amendments to the employment rights bill, mothers and their partners will be given the legal right to at least one week’s bereavement leave if they have suffered a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks’ gestation.

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/Piek3JQ