Public Health England updates travel advice after first cases of mosquito-borne disease are transmitted on US mainland
Pregnant women are being advised to postpone non-essential trips to Florida because of the Zika virus.
Public Health England updated its travel advice after the first cases of Zika transmitted by mosquitoes on the US mainland appeared in the state.
Continue reading...Food Standards Agency to reconsider its advice as risk from salmonella has dropped significantly in last 15 years
Raw eggs are safe for pregnant women to eat, a safety committee has recommended.
A report from the Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food states there is “very low” risk of salmonella from UK eggs produced under the Lion code.
Related: Should you eat eggs when pregnant?
Continue reading...The term menopause derives from the Ancient Greek menos meaning month and pausis meaning a cessation. It is strangely fitting then, that it should be from a Greek research team that the news came this week of a new treatment that might reverse the process.
As a single woman in her 40s who would have loved to become a mother, I wrestled for a long time with the question of exactly when it is too late even to consider the possibility of pregnancy and of having my own child.
The removal of a limit can characterise medicine at its best, and at its most disconcerting
Related: What science doesn’t know about the menopause: what it’s for and how to treat it | Rose George
Continue reading...The UK’s teenage pregnancy rate has halved over the past two decades. Could the internet have something to do with it?
Continue reading...Australian study also finds traditional gender roles prevalent, and each additional $1,000 earned by a woman’s partner increases her pregnancy probability by 1.5%
Women appear to be the decision-makers when it comes to starting a family, with a new report finding a strong correlation between a woman’s relationship satisfaction and financial security and the likelihood of pregnancy and no noticeable correlation to how a man feels and his likelihood of having children.
However the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, or Hilda report, released on Wednesday, did find a strong relationship between a man’s wage and the likelihood his partner would get pregnant, with each additional $1,000 earned by a woman’s partner increasing her pregnancy probability by 1.5%.
Related: Fewer than half of all Australians could be homeowners by 2017, report finds
Related: Maternity leave discrimination: five women tell their stories
Continue reading...Have you had postnatal depression? Or are you holding back from having a child due to concerns about mental health? We want to hear your story
Pregnancy is a time of great joy, but it is also be a time of volatile emotions which can lead to mental health problems.
Figures show that one in five women suffer from depression, anxiety or post-birth psychosis during pregnancy or a year after giving birth.
Continue reading...It’s the winner of pregnancy product of the year for Boots, so it has to be something that’s great for pregnant women, right? Pregnacare Max, according to the Boots website, is “the ultimate formula” for mums-to-be. It includes not only folic acid and vitamin D at amounts recommended by the Department of Health, but also zinc, magnesium, niacin, vitamins B6, B12 and C, iron and a host of other vitamins and minerals. All for £19.99 for a 42-day supply. So is that the price a mother has to pay for the health of her and her newborn?
Well, according to a review of vitamin supplements in pregnancy in the latest Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, the true price may be less. The article said: “For most women who are planning to become pregnant or who are pregnant, complex multivitamin and mineral preparations promoted for use during pregnancy are unlikely to be needed and are an unnecessary expense.”
Continue reading...She knew many pregnancies ended this way. So why did her miscarriage make one mother feel so alone?
My husband and I were married on a cold, overcast afternoon the day before New Year’s Eve. Neither of us had imagined having a winter wedding, but we needed to marry by January in order to be posted together for our next assignment. We both work as diplomats, our lives divided into chunks of time separated by tours abroad.
The timing of the wedding was not a drastic change of plans; we had decided to marry within months of our first meeting. We were like two lumbering comets destined for one another all those years but stuck in the stillness of space – parties, other relationships, the passing of loved ones, bad jobs, all the experiences in between – before the romantic collision that was our first hello in 2010. “Today I met the boy I’m going to marry,” I confided (and almost sang) to a friend over the phone. “And if it doesn’t work out, don’t ever bring this up again.”
I paced in the only way a woman in the 21st century can: Googling every article ever written on miscarriage
I sent my pain into cyberspace. Hundreds of women answered. I had become a “member of a club” of which I wanted no part
I went back to work. I told the truth to people who asked, mostly because honesty took less effort
Continue reading...The rapid decline in women’s fertility as they age is well known – but what about men and their sperm? Read the fine print and the answer becomes less clear
Some weeks ago, a sperm cell (let’s call this little guy Vince) fused with an egg and resulted in a pregnancy. What makes Vince a newsworthy sperm cell is that he came from a 72-year-old penis. And not just any old 72-year-old penis, but the one attached to Mick Jagger, frontman of the Rolling Stones.
I suspect that, like me, women the world over are frowning at their screens as they hear news of heroic lil’ Vince and the 29-year-old ballerina he impregnated. Because if this headline were about Cher getting ready for a fresh round of diapers, the reaction would range from disbelief to disgust – and Cher is two years younger than Mick.
A woman’s best reproductive years are in her 20s. Fertility gradually declines in the 30s, particularly after age 35. Each month that she tries, a healthy, fertile 30-year-old woman has a 20% chance of getting pregnant … By age 40, a woman’s chance is less than 5% per cycle, so fewer than 5 out of every 100 women are expected to be successful each month.
Unlike the early fertility decline seen in women, a man’s decrease in sperm characteristics occurs much later. Sperm quality deteriorates somewhat as men get older, but it generally does not become a problem before a man is in his 60s.
Continue reading...The fertility rate is now higher among over-40s than under-20s for first time since 1947. But what’s it like to have your first child at this age?
New figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the fertility rate of women aged 40 and above has surpassed that of women aged under 20 for the first time since 1947.
The fertility rate of those in their fifth decade and over has now more than trebled since 1981.
Continue reading...With the country’s population in decline, one city plans to spend 90m yen to preserve women’s eggs for future use
Iwaho Kikuchi will measure his success in the number of babies born in his city. Not this year, or next year necessarily, but in 10 or even 20 years’ time.
Kikuchi is the doctor in charge of a groundbreaking fertility initiative in Japan, in which public money will be used to pay for women to freeze eggs for use later in their life.
Related: Japan's population declines for first time since 1920s – official census
Related: Fed up with all the dreadful news out there? Then click here
Related: Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?
Continue reading...Rate has more than trebled in over-40s since 1981, and average age of women giving birth is now 30.3, ONS figures show
The fertility rate of women aged 40 and above has surpassed that of women aged under 20 for the first time since 1947, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The older age group had the largest percentage increase (3.4%) in fertility rates in 2015, the figures show, while the younger age group had the largest percentage decrease (7.1%), continuing a decline since 1999.
Fertility rate for women aged 40+ in Eng&Wales rose above rate for women < 20 in 2015 https://t.co/Oeq5cs0OZG http://pic.twitter.com/UxdPdaulB8
Related: Number of deaths in England and Wales hits 12-year high
Continue reading...She’s rich, famous and thin – but the actor is fed up enough to take on the press, which has focused its lenses on her and her flat belly for ‘the bajillionth time’
News flash No 1: no, Jennifer Aniston is not pregnant.
News flash No 2: if she ever is in the family way, she will tell you first, honest.
Continue reading...Research claims multivitamins and minerals do not improve mothers’ or babies’ health and are an unnecessary expense
Most pregnant women who take multivitamin and mineral supplements are wasting their time and money because such tablets do not improve their or their baby’s health, new research says.
Mothers should not be seduced by marketing that makes claims that cannot be backed up, according to a review of the available evidence on the subject in the journal Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin.
Related: Pregnancy food: what you eat can affect your child for life
Related: Folic acid taken by less than third of women planning pregnancy
Continue reading...After I was devastated by an unviable pregnancy, it was hard to feel invested in my subsequent one. That changed once my daughter was born
The first sign we had that I was pregnant again was a home test. I peed on the plastic wand and then attempted to putter casually about the kitchen for three minutes as I waited for the result. When I finally looked, the second pink line – the one that confirms pregnancy – was so faint I didn’t see it at first; it only caught my eye as I moved to toss the test into the trash.
I strode into the living room and told my husband: “It seem that we’re having a baby.”
Related: Facing my fear: my jaw was wired shut for a month | Jamiles Lartey
Open contributions: When have you faced your fear?
Continue reading...Report cites assemblies on mental health and peer mentors as initiatives schools and centres could use to tackle anxiety and depression
Councils and the NHS have been urged to do more to reduce mental health problems among pregnant women, new mothers and young children.
Schools, health visitors and children’s centres should become more involved in efforts to tackle the growing number of children and young people with anxiety and depression, the Local Government Association said on Thursday.
Related: NHS child mental health services are failing the next generation, say GPs
Continue reading...I never got to ponder the question “Am I ready to have a baby?” before the event. Had it ever occurred to me to think about it around the time that I first became pregnant, at the age of 26, the answer would have been instant: “Not on yer nelly.”
Related: Am I a psychopath? You asked Google – here’s the answer | David Shariatmadari
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You don't need to be ready to be in the right place to have a baby. In fact, more fool those who believe they are
Continue reading...Danish study showed 71% were successful within timeframe but chances of success were strongly linked to age, said researchers
Nearly three-quarters of women undergoing fertility treatment will give birth within five years of starting the process, research has revealed.
The study followed almost 20,000 Danish women undergoing fertility treatments including IVF and intrauterine insemination (IUI). The results revealed that more than half of the women had a baby within two years of starting treatment. Within three years, 65% of the women had given birth, with the figure rising to 71% within five years.
Continue reading...Mitochondrial DNA quantification could help doctors select embryos with the best of chance of leading to a pregnancy, research shows
A new technique to genetically screen IVF embryos should be considered for use in the UK, fertility experts say. The call comes after research revealed it could help doctors select embryos that have the best of chance of leading to a pregnancy.
Pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) is more common in the US than the UK, and is used by doctors to flag up embryos with an abnormal number of chromosomes - the main reason why embryos fail to implant in the womb.
Continue reading...