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

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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

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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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