Babies born in a recession ‘have worse health’

Icelandic study finds link between financial crisis and lower than average birth weights

Economic woes can be as damaging to a baby’s health as smoking or drinking during pregnancy, according to the first study to establish a causal link between foetal exposure to financial stress in an advanced economy and the health of babies at birth.

Research presented at this month’s annual congress of the European Economic Association in Mannheim by Arna Vardardottir, assistant professor at the department of economics at Copenhagen Business School, tracks the unexpected collapse of Iceland’s economy in 2008.

The scale of Iceland's collapse, its speed and the fact that it had not been foreseen meant its impact was acute

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Rape, ignorance, repression: why early pregnancy is endemic in Guatemala | Linda Forsell and Kjetil Lyche

Lack of sex education and the unenlightened stance of the Catholic church have left young girls in Guatemala vulnerable to rape, abuse and early pregnancy

At a hospital in northern Guatemala, Alicia is being prepped for a caesarean. She doesn’t know how old she is, and neither she nor her waiting parents have any idea what a C-section involves. Public records say she is 13. If that is correct, at 12 she became pregnant by a 22-year-old man.

Inside the operating room, the doctors play Christian music on a mobile phone. An hour later, a baby boy weighing roughly four and a half pounds is born and hurried into an incubator. The next few days will be critical.

Families now know that the man will be reported if the girl delivers the bay in hospital so they give birth at home

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My first labour was harrowing. Hypnobirthing made my second like a dream | Amy Fleming

First-time mothers can be terrified because they’re rushed through labour, but I overcame my fears with the help of this meditative practice

I wasn’t surprised to read last week that hypnobirthing is becoming a standard part of birth preparation, with more and more British hospitals running their own courses.

To the uninitiated, the stories of painless, chilled-out labours it has facilitated might sound akin to the orgasmic birth movement, which, let’s face it, isn’t for everyone. But I’ve tried hypnobirthing, and can vouch that it’s a commonsense antidote to how alien and scary one of the most natural things in the world has become for many women.

My husband put his hands on my shoulders and said, 'go deeper' - this was both hilarious and effective

Related: Viv Groskop on the controversy surrounding orgasmic birth

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Let’s celebrate Laura Wade-Gery for becoming a mother at 50 | Bidisha

The Marks & Spencer executive is shunning the conventional motherhood timetable. Stop judging her and salute her as an inspiration

Laura Wade-Gery could be a Barbara Taylor-Bradford heroine or a Jackie Collins boardroom badass: debonair, moneyed and connected as only a diplomat’s daughter could be, well-travelled, ambitious, successful – and about to become a mother at 50.

The public announcement of her four-month maternity leave was made by Marks & Spencer, where Wade-Gery has worked for 14 years and is now a senior director.

Related: What is the right size family? We need an answer now | Joseph Harker

Laura Wade-Gery is inspirational because she is acting without explanation or apology

Related: I'm 29: should I freeze my eggs?

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Moms facing C-sections look to vaginal 'seeding' to boost their babies' health

Early studies show that swabbing a mother’s vagina and transferring it to her baby’s mouth, eyes and skin may stimulate microbiome development similarly to babies born naturally – and protect it from health issues later in life

Carolyn Weiss has a very peculiar birth plan.

An hour before Weiss, who is 37 and lives in Brooklyn, gives birth this January via C-section, she will insert a piece of saline-soaked gauze into her vagina. Right before the surgery, she’ll remove the gauze and place it in a sealed container. Seconds after the birth, Carolyn’s husband will take the gauze and swab it inside the baby’s mouth, around her eyes, and on her skin. The practice, called “seeding”, is beginning to attract some attention.

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I'm 29: should I freeze my eggs?

Moya Sarner and her boyfriend both know they want children - just not yet. Should she join the growing number of women in their 20s considering egg freezing?

I am sitting in a fertility clinic, looking at a wall covered in baby photos. These are babies born with the help of the consultant I am about to meet. As I wait, I wonder if the pictures provoke pain or hope in women who have sat on this same leather sofa. I can’t know that agony – I don’t think anyone can until they experience it – but I am afraid of it. I am 29, my boyfriend and I are not trying to conceive a child, and we have no fertility problems that we’re aware of. So why am I here?

It all started earlier this year, when my partner and I were enjoying a lazy Sunday evening in our flat. I was hanging up my washing, and as I shook my jeans to get the creases out, he said, “I would like to have a child. But can we wait until we’re 40?” I laughed, but he wasn’t joking.

Apple and Facebook now offer to pay for female employees to freeze their eggs, as part of their benefits package

'I spent so much time and anxiety freaking out in my early 30s. This cultural baby panic is not helping women'

Perhaps one day this will be the norm, the cost absorbed into a young woman's life like tuition fees, or driving lessons

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Is Kim Kardashian pregnant, or is it all just another celebrity conspiracy?

The truth is out there, but it’s pretty hard to detect, what with all the theories about the stars and the way their offspring suddenly appear after nine months

Doff your tinfoil in solidarity, for these are dark times for the truther movement in celebrity pregnancy. Of course, we know that truthing is always a lonely path, which the dedicated conspiracist is fated to tread with only countless other wingnuts and the odd US presidential hopeful for company. But advances in technology, coupled with regressions in self-esteem, mean that it has never been easier for our celebrity rulers to counter claims that they are faking their pregnancies.

Only this week, Kim Kardashian decided to crack down on speculation that she was doing what so many celebrities do: faking a pregnancy using an ever-expanding set of state-of-the-art prosthetics for all trips out of the home for at least six months, while the real baby is incubated remotely, either in an indentured civilian girl or a laboratory birthing pod in Area 51.

Related: Why Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy selfie would turn Titian on

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Kathy Lette: I joked about not wanting to be pregnant – then I had a miscarriage

At home after a scan that revealed she had lost her third baby, the Australian-born author was overcome by unexpected emotion

The first inkling that I was pregnant again was signalled by a sudden craving for pickle sandwiches, pedicures and holidays in Paris (well, they’re the pregnancy cravings I get). But how to break the news to my husband? Perhaps the next time I was vomiting and he asked if there was anything he could do, I could simply reply, “Um, how about carry our third child to full-term?” Subtle yet dramatic. And more direct than a sudden declaration that I’d be declining all bungee-jumping invitations for the next nine months. I rehearsed the dialogue in my head but had no doubt that it would be just like the baby in my belly – so easy to conceive, so hard to deliver.

My husband was euphoric at my news. But I just couldn’t get excited. I tried to think of the miracle of life stirring within me. But my spouse had recently washed the dishes without me asking, so I felt I had already witnessed my miracle for the year.

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With miscarriage, there are many routes to shame | Zoe Williams

Mark Zuckerberg is right to challenge the taboos surrounding pregnancy. But the pressure on women remains intense

‘Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you – as if you’re defective or did something to cause this,” wrote Mark Zuckerberg, announcing his wife’s pregnancy, after three miscarriages. In the open letter, he continued: “In today’s open and connected world, discussing these issues doesn’t distance us; it brings us together. It creates understanding and tolerance, and it gives us hope.” It is not strange at all that the inventor of Facebook would think social media had a new answer to a problem as old as humankind. What would be strange is if he were right: what if that’s true? What if this taboo were to be overturned by the internet? What would the implications of that be, for all other taboos, for all other hopes?

Related: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and wife expecting a baby girl

The modern narrative around pregnancy and childbirth makes it more difficult to be open

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