‘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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