Mental illness is pregnancy’s No 1 complication. It’s time to support those who suffer from it | Edna Lekgabe

Integrated mental health care for maternity services, more perinatal psychiatrists and public awareness of the problem could deliver meaningful change

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

When Mia* was referred to me, she was 32 weeks pregnant and had not slept properly in two months. Her GP had told her it was “just pregnancy insomnia”. Her obstetrician said it was normal and suggested she try going to bed earlier with a pregnancy pillow. By the time she sat in my consulting room, hands clenched around a damp tissue, she had been quietly planning how her partner and baby would be better off without her.

Mia is not a real person. She is a composite – an amalgam of the hundreds of women I see each year in my perinatal psychiatry practice. But her story is so common it could be a template. A woman develops psychological symptoms during pregnancy or the postpartum period. She mentions them, tentatively, at an antenatal appointment. She is reassured that what she feels is normal. Weeks or months pass. By the time she reaches specialist care, she is freefalling into a crisis.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/4GK5XTP

My egg, my wife’s womb, our baby: how we found our way to lesbian motherhood

When Leah and I planned a family, we wanted to be as mutual as possible. Could reciprocal IVF – Leah carrying an embryo made from my egg – be the way forward?

Late last year, it became my friend’s favourite party trick. “Rosa’s going to have a baby next week,” she’d say to a group of people who didn’t know me. I’d watch their faces as they tried to inconspicuously scan my body, detecting no sign of a bump. “Congratulations!” they’d say, smiles tight, clearly wondering what other delusions I might have up my sleeve.

I was, however, about to have a baby. At daybreak on a warm October day, our beautiful, 6lb 10oz, 19.5in‑long baby girl was born; skin pink and taut, scream wet and bright. I held my wife’s hand and head as our daughter emerged from her body – a daughter who had initially come from me.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/MHyOKP4

Pronatalism with Etsy sensibilities: how high-profile White House pregnancies became agitprop

As the Trump administration stokes anxiety about US birthrates, Karoline Leavitt and Katie Miller have touted motherhood as the ultimate ‘blessing’

On a Sunday in late March, dozens of White House staffers dressed in florals and pastels gathered at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia to celebrate the impending arrival of Karoline Leavitt’s second child. “I feel blessed to have so many strong and loving women in my life,” the White House press secretary would later post on Instagram, “and can’t believe we will welcome our little lady into the world in a few weeks.”

The vibes of the pink-themed baby shower, as documented in a New York Post exclusive, were soft, bordering on twee – a sharp contrast to the professional persona of a woman the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán once joked about hiring after witnessing her cage matches with the press.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/YxGm5aX

A moment that changed me: I was wary of men – then I found out I was having a baby boy

When I became pregnant, all I wanted was a healthy baby. Discovering I would be having a son gave me a new perspective on the narratives around masculinity

At the 20-week ultrasound, because of the baby’s position, my partner and I didn’t get any proper pictures to take home. Instead, the sonographer printed us a shot of the genitals. So, there it was, in black and white: I was having a boy.

Growing up, boys were a slightly alien concept. Our household was female-heavy – a mum, two sisters, a dad with no interest in conventional “boy stuff”. We did have two male cats, neutered, extremely fluffy and ironically named Mr White and Mr Orange by my dad (“Reservoir Cats”).

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/u7nYAmd

Rare pregnancy complication has put UK women into ‘emergency surgery’

Scores of women have told how they were affected by placenta accreta spectrum for an awareness campaign

Women have had to undergo major emergency surgery, including a hysterectomy, when medical staff failed to detect they had a rare but potentially fatal complication of pregnancy.

Scores of women have come forward to tell their stories of how they were affected by placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) since the launch in February of a campaign to raise awareness among NHS staff and mothers-to-be of the dangers it poses.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/pUu01F5

Women with perinatal OCD are still being failed | Letter

Screening at the six-week check and signposting to services could prevent suffering and save lives, write Fiona Challacombe, Diana Wilson and Maria Bavetta

We were glad that the story of Kimberley Nixon was highlighted in your article and commend her openness about the devastating nature of perinatal OCD (‘This is so taboo’: Kimberley Nixon on the hell of perinatal OCD – and how she survived it, 28 April). Experiencing vivid unwanted intrusive thoughts, images and urges of accidentally or deliberately harming your infant can be hugely distressing, isolating and often misunderstood. Intrusions and compulsions can take, or indeed steal, hours a day, and can make women feel as if they are the worst mothers possible.

In severe cases, women can feel that ending their lives is the only course of action. We have been activists and researchers in perinatal OCD for 20 years and are aware of the issues of lack of recognition, misdiagnosis, inappropriate safeguarding procedures being activated and difficulties in accessing effective therapy.

Continue reading...

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

Thursday briefing: What new evidence tells us about the reality of racial discrimination in maternity care

In today’s newsletter: Persistent gaps in maternal health outcomes have long been documented​, but now a growing body of evidence suggests that ​racism and deprivation have profound consequences for pregnancy and birth

Good morning. Researchers have long known that women in the UK experience very different birth outcomes depending on their ethnicity, income and physical condition. Black women, for example, are still about 2.7 times more likely to die during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth than white women.

As the Guardian reported on Wednesday, a new study suggests one possible explanation: that the cumulative physiological impact of stress caused by racism and inequality may itself affect pregnancy outcomes.

UK news | Police are treating the stabbing of two men in Golders Green, north London, as terrorism, with the suspect described as having been hunting for anyone “visibly Jewish” to attack.

UK politics | Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election.

Middle East | Pete Hegseth has denied that the US-Israel war on Iran is “a quagmire” and claimed critics of the operation posed a greater threat to the US than Iran itself, as he came under pressure to set out Washington’s strategy for the conflict.

UK news | Police have raided the headquarters of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light following an investigation into allegations of serious sexual offences, modern slavery and forced marriage.

Defence | Britain has agreed to create a unified naval force with nine European countries to deter future Russian threats from the “open sea border” to the north.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/vPlC5hZ