US company to pay $22.5m over newborn’s death after denying woman remote work

Chelsea Walsh prematurely gave birth after firm rejected work from home request in 2021 amid high-risk pregnancy

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An Ohio freight-brokerage firm must pay $22.5m in damages to a woman whom the company denied permission to work from home as she tried managing pregnancy complications – and then endured her newborn’s death after prematurely giving birth, a state court jury has decided.

The case centering on Chelsea Walsh, her late daughter Magnolia, and Total Quality Logistics (TQL) unfolded as many employers increasingly allowed remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic – but then pushed to get workers physically back into the office.

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Lords urged to ensure women criminalised for abortion are ‘not left behind’

House to consider amendment that would pardon women in England and Wales affected by prior ‘unjust’ laws

Women who have been arrested, investigated and convicted under abortion legislation in England and Wales “must not be left behind” if the law is changed to prevent women being criminalised in future, campaigners have said.

Last summer, the House of Commons voted to end the criminalisation of women who terminate their pregnancies outside the legal framework, through a new clause in the crime and policing bill.

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Women feel coerced during maternity care in England, charity says

Exclusive: Birthrights report says women are being told they are ‘not allowed’ and are being denied genuine choice

Women feel put under pressure to have medical procedures such as caesareans during their maternity care, according to a report.

The charity Birthrights collated the experiences of 300 people in England who said they had felt or witnessed coercion within a maternity setting.

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Officials ‘missed 99% of data’ on Covid vaccines before making recommendation, memos reveal

US based Covid vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant people on ideology instead of evidence, critics say

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There was scant data behind ending the Covid vaccine recommendation for pregnant people and children, according to internal memos made public because of a lawsuit against the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The memos overlooked hundreds of studies on the benefits and safety of Covid vaccination and set the precedent for making changes to vaccine recommendations based on ideology instead of evidence, critics say.

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Fetuses likely have more ‘forever chemicals’ in blood than thought – report

US test of 120 umbilical blood cord samples identified 42 Pfas compounds, which do not naturally break down

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New peer-reviewed research shows fetuses likely have much higher levels of Pfas “forever chemicals” in their blood than previously thought.

Testing of umbilical cord blood typically looks for a small number of common Pfas compounds, like Pfoa and Pfos. However, thousands of Pfas exist, and a new Mount Sinai study tested 120 umbilical blood cord samples that were previously found to contain up to four compounds.

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I went into motherhood an oblivious idiot - and I don’t regret it | Emma Beddington

All the information about pregnancy and parenting can be understandably off-putting. It’s best to look at it clear-sightedly and, if you do decide to give it a go, accept that the path ahead is unpredictable

Can you know too much to have kids? “Maybe knowing too much about motherhood has ruined me,” journalist Andrea González-Ramírez mused on New York magazine’s The Cut website. She always assumed she would have children, González-Ramírez writes, but the “overload of brutally honest information” from the frontlines of millennial motherhood, and everything she knows about the horrifying rollback of reproductive rights, maternal mortality rates, the childcare crisis and the motherhood penalty, has left her deeply ambivalent.

Recent reports on birth trauma and grave failings in maternity care here in the UK add to the feeling it’s sensible to wonder if you’re ready to put your physical integrity, financial stability, mental health, or even your life on the line; at some level, we get the birthrate we deserve as a society. Plus, the news last week that pregnant women “shed grey matter” (“pruning” to prepare for caregiving life, the theory goes) wouldn’t win me over if I were on the fence.

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Maternity services need investment in people and training, not another review | Letters

Readers respond to Lady Amos’s damning interim report on the state of England’s NHS maternity care

Once again, we are faced with a report detailing the failures in maternity services (Cruel comments, racism and cover-ups: key findings from England’s maternity care report, 26 February, 26 February), highlighting deficiencies in both clinical staffing and care environments. Maternity services in the NHS are in crisis, but this is not new information. As clinicians, we have been aware of these systemic pressures for many years. Reports from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, now Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations, along with numerous other inquiries, have already identified the core issues. Collectively, they have produced some 748 recommendations that, if properly implemented, could meaningfully improve care.

Instead of directing funding towards implementing these recommendations, resources are being diverted into commissioning yet another review – one that is likely to reiterate what we already know. It is time to redirect investment to where it will make a tangible difference. We must return maternity services to strong, safe foundations: high-quality support, meaningful training and sustainable staffing levels for hardworking clinicians who continue to deliver care in chronically underresourced environments. These professionals strive daily to meet increasingly complex and often unrealistic expectations, frequently shaped by social media narratives that do not reflect the realities and risks inherent in maternity care.

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The scandal of women handcuffed while in labour: ‘I was so shocked when the restraints weren’t removed’

Pregnant women prisoners are being handcuffed to prison officers – often male – during intimate vaginal examinations and long, agonising births. Will this dehumanising treatment be stopped?

The worst moment of Joanna’s labour was an internal examination. She was handcuffed with her legs splayed apart and a male prison officer at the foot of the hospital bed saw everything. She had prepared for the arrival of her first baby as carefully as she could. But she understood that birth can be unpredictable – and this was complicated by the fact that, during the latter part of her pregnancy, she was serving a jail sentence.

Joanna was a model prisoner who followed the rules. She had been convicted for a non-violent drugs offence and was not deemed to be at high risk of escape, particularly not in the throes of an agonising labour. She hoped to use hypnobirthing, breathing and relaxation techniques to make the birth calmer and more comfortable. Thanks to information provided by the charity Birth Companions she knew it was her right not to be handcuffed during labour. She had highlighted the handcuffing points in the booklet.

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Jailed for losing a pregnancy: how progress on El Salvador’s harsh anti-abortion law is unravelling

Years of campaigning led to the release of 81 women imprisoned under the country’s strict reproductive laws, but the suspension of civil rights by President Nayib Bukele is fuelling a new wave of criminalisation

Her ordeal began with stomach cramps; 19 years old and training to be a nurse, she knew something was wrong. At the hospital she waited for hours in the emergency department. She had suffered an obstetric emergency.

Under El Salvador’s legal framework, emergencies including miscarriages and stillbirths place women under criminal suspicion. She lost the baby and doctors alerted the police. She was arrested and handcuffed.

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Giving stem cells in utero to babies with spina bifida boosts quality of life, trial finds

Experimental therapy of applying stem cells during surgery could be ‘major milestone’ in treatment of birth defects

Giving stem cells to unborn babies diagnosed with spina bifida while they have in utero surgery could be “a major milestone” in the treatment of birth defects, doctors say.

A trial in the US found that applying stem cells from the mother’s placenta to her baby’s spine while it was being repaired was safe and improved the child’s mobility and quality of life.

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What is the national maternity and neonatal investigation and why was it launched?

From racism to staff shortages, the interim report found a host of deep-rooted issues affecting women and babies

• NHS maternity units often cover up harmful errors in childbirth, report finds

• Cruel comments, racism and cover-ups: key findings from England’s maternity care report

On Thursday, a damning interim report published after a national investigation into England’s maternity services found deep-rooted issues affecting women and their babies, including insensitivity from maternity staff, racism and discrimination, and chronic staff shortages. Below is an exploration of what led to the report and what happens next.

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Placenta complications and how the NHS manages them | Letter

Prof Eric Jauniaux explains the causes of placenta previa and placenta accreta spectrum

I am the lead developer of the Royal College of Gynaecologists’ Green-top guidelines on placenta previa and placenta accreta spectrum (PAS), referenced in your article (Campaign urges NHS to improve diagnosis of potentially life-threatening childbirth condition, 18 February). I also have personal experience of placental delivery complications, as when my son was born, his placenta got stuck inside the womb of his mother after his birth (placental retention).

Placental retention is due to the premature closure of the cervix after the birth of the baby, and is a leading cause of uterine atony and postpartum haemorrhage, affecting around one in 100 births.

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Campaign urges NHS to improve diagnosis of potentially life-threatening childbirth condition

Exclusive: Five hospitals failed to spot Amisha Adhia had placenta accreta before one obstetrician intervened

After five hospitals failed to spot that she had a rare but potentially fatal complication of childbirth, Amisha Adhia is to launch a campaign urging the NHS to do more to diagnose the condition and save lives.

Pregnant women are at much greater risk of developing placenta accreta spectrum if they have already given birth by caesarean section or had IVF treatment.

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I was told my inability to conceive a second child was a ‘mystery’. In fact I was simply ignored

Women’s pain is routinely minimised, normalised, or psychologised. In fertility medicine, this dismissal is compounded by an industry structured around efficiency rather than care

“The female body is such a mystery.”

The fertility specialist said it lightly, almost kindly, from behind his desk. I was there because my partner and I had been trying for a second child without success. At the time, our son was two. We had conceived him naturally and relatively quickly, so after months of negative pregnancy tests, I knew that something was off.

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Mixed message in France’s letter about fertility | Letters

Daniel Whittington writes that it shows a lack of understanding; plus letters on the length of maternity leave and the emotional cost of leaving conception too late

As a 24-year-old French man, I think this plan (France’s letters to 29-year-olds to remind them to have babies is a spectacular missing of the point, 10 February) reveals a mind‑boggling lack of understanding by our country’s leaders of what is actually going through the minds of our generation.

For as long as I can remember, teachers, scientists and the media have been telling us that the world is essentially ending and that life on Earth will not endure. The tone varies, but that is the general message we have grown up with.

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Almost 70% of NHS areas in England only offer one cycle of IVF, data shows

Charity says situation breaks Nice guidelines and is having devastating impact on couples struggling with infertility

Millions of women in England are only able to access one round of IVF on the NHS because of health authority cutbacks and in contravention of official policy, research from a fertility charity has shown.

Nearly 70% of local areas fund just one cycle for women under 40 who have been unable to conceive for two years, rather than the three full cycles they should be offered in line with official guidance, according to data collected by the Progress Educational Trust (PET).

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‘Part of our biological toolkit’: newborn babies can anticipate rhythm in music, researchers find

Brain activity suggests newborns can detect and predict patterns relating to rhythm, study says

Newborn babies can anticipate rhythm in pieces of music, researchers have discovered, offering insights into a fundamental human trait.

Babies in the womb begin to respond to music by about eight or nine months, as shown by changes in their heart rate and body movements, said Dr Roberta Bianco, the first author of the research who is based at the Italian Institute of Technology in Rome.

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Lelia Duley obituary

My wife, Lelia Duley, who has died aged 67, was an obstetric epidemiologist who studied health outcomes related to pregnancy, childbirth and its aftermath.

Working alongside frontline clinicians, she designed large-scale trials to test commonly used, but under-evaluated, treatments for pregnant women.

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Support new mothers with mental ill health | Letter

Perinatal mental illness is eminently treatable, and women and their partners should not suffer in silence, says Dr Livia Martucci

Every day, many new mothers continue to suffer in silence, as highlighted in your article (Seven out of 10 UK mothers feel overloaded, research reveals, 28 January). The Royal College of Psychiatrists revealed postnatal depression harmed up to 85,000 new mums in England last year.

Maternal suicide is one of the leading causes of death among women between six weeks and a year after birth. Perinatal mental illness accounts for 34% of all deaths in this group during this period. Untreated prenatal and antenatal mental illness also affects unborn infants, potentially putting them at risk of premature birth and low birth weight. Parents may find it difficult to bond with their baby once they are born, which can contribute to attachment issues.

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Anna longed for a second child. Coming to terms with secondary infertility meant letting go of her fixed notion of family | Bianca Denny

Therapy helped her sit with the uncertainty of being part of a single-child family – and realise others’ successes with pregnancy were not her failures

• The modern mind is a column where experts discuss mental health issues they are seeing in their work

Anna* delighted in motherhood and was eager to add a second child to her family. She expected conception and pregnancy to again be quick and easy, but after a year of negative pregnancy tests, Anna’s doctor used a term she’d not heard before: secondary infertility.

For Anna, the anguish associated with secondary infertility – the inability to conceive or carry to term a second or subsequent child – was pervading all aspects of her life. Anna believed her family to be incomplete without a second child and was devastated at the thought of her child growing up without a sibling.

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Taliban birth control ban: women ‘broken’ by lethal pregnancies and untreated miscarriages

Women across Afghanistan describe the traumatic impact of disappearing clinics and contraception

Parwana* no longer recognises her own children. Once known for her beauty in her village in Kandahar province, the 36-year-old sits on the floor of her mother’s home, rocking silently. After nine pregnancies and six miscarriages, many under pressure from her husband and in-laws, Parwana has slipped into a permanent state of confusion.

“She is lost,” says her mother, Sharifa. “They broke her with fear, pregnancies and violence.”

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As LA maternity wards close, patients are giving birth in ERs: ‘There’s no system to care for these women’

From 2016 to 2023, more than 26,500 people, mostly Latino, have gone to an ER in LA county to seek birthing care

This story was produced in partnership with the non-profit newsroom Type Investigations and the investigative reporting program at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

Sigita Cahoon’s 16 September 2024 stretched through the night.

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Guess How Much I Love You? review – shattering portrait of a pregnancy in crisis

Royal Court theatre, London
Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo excel as a couple reeling from an ultrasound scan in Luke Norris’s extraordinary play

The trigger warnings are handed to us on a card as we file into the auditorium. For good reason: Luke Norris’s play is a harrowing portrait of pregnancy and grief, plumbing the depths of sorrow within a marriage. But it is not only that. It is funny and profound, intense without ever becoming overwrought.

The play follows a thirtysomething couple who remain unnamed, just like their baby, as they navigate loss. Their relationship seems to feed off a sparky kind of contrariness. She (Rosie Sheehy) is clever, ferocious, always up for a fight. He (Robert Aramayo) is gentler, using humour – and poetry, even in the face of her jeering – to soften her edges. Their dialogue sounds like a contact sport – ricocheting, fast and furious – while they wait for the results of their 20-week ultrasound scan in the first scene.

At Royal Court theatre, London, until 21 February

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Meet the OB-GYNs fighting back against Trump’s ‘guerrilla war on science’

As some medical groups cave to the Trump administration, the American College of OB-GYNs is taking a stand

When Steven Fleischman took over as president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in 2025, he knew that controversy was practically part of the job description. But the Connecticut-based physician at Yale University School of Medicine never predicted that things would get this dire.

As the premier membership group for US-based OB-GYNs, ACOG provides its more than 62,000 members with clinical guidance, educational opportunities and career help. It also advocates for abortion rights – a stance that has long made the organization far more politically active than many other major medical societies. And in the last year, the nonpartisan organization has become a leading voice in the fight against Donald Trump’s anti-science crusade and the US government’s embrace of medical misinformation, especially on the topic of pregnancy and childbirth.

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Experience: my daughters were born conjoined at the head

Seeing them separated for the first time felt like a miracle

I was already a mother of three when I lay back for my 10-week ultrasound in 2019. At first, seeing the gel on my stomach and the flickering black and white image on screen was familiar and soothing. Then I saw the look on the sonographer’s face.

She dropped the probe and ran out of the room without a word. I tried not to panic, but by the time she sprinted back in with a doctor, who looked at the screen and said, “Oh my goodness”, I was terrified.

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Pregnant woman in medical distress deported from US, says attorney

Woman who’s eight months pregnant sent to Colombia by ICE, despite belated court order to keep her out of the air

A 21-year-old woman who is eight months pregnant and in a state of medical distress was deported Wednesday afternoon, a human rights attorney said, despite a court order, issued too late, to keep her out of the air.

“We are trying to get her the medical attention she needs immediately,” said Anthony Enriquez, vice-president of US advocacy and litigation at the Kennedy Human Rights Center, whose client, Zharick Daniela Buitrago Ortiz, was sent back to Colombia.

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Coroner calls for more guidance on doulas after baby’s death in Hampshire

Prevention of future deaths report issued after delay in taking mother of Matilda Pomfret-Thomas to hospital

A coroner has warned that more babies could die without greater clarity and guidance over the role of home birthing assistants, after the death of a baby girl raised concerns about a doula delaying access to hospital treatment.

Matilda Pomfret-Thomas died of a brain injury in November 2023, 15 days after her mother had a difficult home labour and was not immediately transferred to hospital despite signs of foetal distress, an inquest concluded last month.

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Women ‘being failed by underfunded and understaffed’ UK postnatal care

Thousands of new mothers feel unsafe, unsupported and overwhelmed, according to the National Childbirth Trust

Women in the UK are being failed by a postnatal care system that is “dangerously underfunded and understaffed”, a damning report has warned.

Thousands of new mothers feel unsafe, unsupported and overwhelmed in the weeks and months after giving birth, according to the National Childbirth Trust (NCT).

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Maternal death rate in UK rose by 20% over 14 years despite Tory pledge

Experts describe increase as ‘absolute tragedy’ after data shows rate jumped despite Conservatives vowing to halve it

The rate of women dying during or soon after pregnancy in the UK has increased by 20% over the last decade, despite the Conservatives having pledged to halve it, according to figures experts have described as “an absolute tragedy”.

In 2015, the then Tory health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, vowed to reduce maternal deaths by 50% by 2030 and make the NHS “one of the safest places in the world to have a baby”. In 2017, he brought the date forward to 2025.

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I had an abortion due to climate anxiety. How can I come to terms with it? | Ask Annalisa Barbieri

Counselling should help, but it sounds as if you need to slow down and give yourself time to grieve

I am 37 years old, happily married and have two children, who came along quickly after we got married in my late 20s. I instantly fell in love with them. However, I wasn’t really emotionally or practically ready, and developed postnatal anxiety.

I’ve always cared about the climate crisis, and since after having kids, and knowing it will affect their lives more than mine, I became motivated to make changes. We live a very “green” life.

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