pregnancy: أكتوبر 2017

الثلاثاء، 31 أكتوبر 2017

Church halls, chipped mugs and confessions … antenatal classes aren’t that different from Alcoholics Anonymous | Amy Liptrot

Last time I was battling addiction and this time I’m growing a human, but the intimacy, inexperience, wisdom – and the level of gore – are pretty much the same

Medium pregnant with my first child and turning up nervously on a Tuesday evening to my first antenatal class, I was reminded of something by the circle of chairs, the sudden intimacy with strangers and the Jammie Dodgers. I had been here before, spending my evenings in church halls drinking tea from chipped mugs, talking about sleepless nights and shitting yourself: at Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings.

I’ve attended hundreds of AA groups, mostly in the first year or two after I stopped drinking, and on and off for years before that. I know how it is to be rattled and raw and facing something unknown. Back then, I wondered what life was going to look like without constantly being trolleyed; now I’m facing it with a small person to be responsible for. And as with the rehab I went to, when I see all these people at turning points in their lives with different stories about how they got here, as a writer I think: this is great material.

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الاثنين، 30 أكتوبر 2017

Do celebrities have a responsibility to reveal their IVF?

In Europe, 77% of IVF treatments fail – and doctors have suggested that famous people should be more honest about their fertility to combat the spread of misinformation

‘The problem is,” says Prof Tim Child, medical director of Oxford Fertility, “all these Hollywood magazines with these women in their 40s who are having twins. It’s completely unrealistic.” Women of 45 or 46 regularly come into his clinic thinking they can have IVF with their own eggs, unaware of how unlikely that is to work. Dr Richard Paulson, of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, calls the celebrity cult of silence around their fertility a “form of misinformation”. His organisation studied 240 star interviews in which pregnancy or children came up; only two had mentioned fertility treatment, despite the fact that more than half were over 35.

There may be reasons peculiar to Hollywood why a woman wouldn’t want to go public on the state of her ovaries – it is probably considered ageing to talk about IVF in an industry where the march of time is a matter of constant dispute. Or perhaps when your personal life is a matter of feverish general interest, to let the world glare right into your organs would feel a bit, I don’t know, intrusive. But it is possible, too, that the mothers of Hollywood are much like regular mothers and prefer not to talk about things that are nobody else’s business.

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الأحد، 29 أكتوبر 2017

I survived a ruptured ectopic pregnancy - but in many countries I would have died

Development worker Leila de Bruyne says the first-world healthcare that saved her life is a basic human right that should be afforded to all expectant mothers

Sitting on the floor by the fireplace with Wawerũ, her legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, we have to keep ourselves from laughing too loudly. It’s 10pm at Flying Kites, a school in rural Kenya, and a handful of orphaned students who don’t have homes to go to are sleeping in the bedroom just behind where we’re sitting.

Wawerũ has taken a long pause in her story. She smoothes the wrinkles on her skirt and rubs her shins, which are covered in thick purple scars – some slashes are so raised they look like slugs warming themselves by the fire. “What do you mean you had to cut the umbilical cord yourself?” I ask, and we’re both laughing again, like two women recounting a crazy night out. Except we’re not. We’re talking about Wawerũ giving birth to her first child alone on a dirt floor in Njabini, a small village in the foothills of Kenya’s Aberdare mountains. And I probably shouldn’t be laughing, but Wawerũ is an incredible storyteller and very funny. “And then I nursed the baby and made chai. You just do what you have to!” she says, leaning back against the wall, and I am in awe.

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السبت، 28 أكتوبر 2017

Hospital admits shortcomings after claims ultrasound money funded parties

Sources allege money paid by expectant parents to St George’s hospital in London was kept in private account and used to fund staff parties

A hospital has admitted to serious shortcomings in the way it handled payments from expectant parents for ultrasound pictures after it was alleged that staff kept the money in a private bank account and used it to fund staff parties.

Sources at St George’s hospital in Tooting, south London, contacted the Guardian to report that staff from the foetal medicine unit had been interviewed as part of a fraud investigation after £20,000 in cash was found in a filing cabinet.

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الجمعة، 27 أكتوبر 2017

Top obstetrician supports women taking abortion pills at home

Prof Lesley Regan says taking misoprostol at home allows for safer care than making women travel to clinics

One of the UK’s top gynaecologists has said the decision to allow women in Scotland to take abortion pills at home is “admirable” and she hopes there will be support for the move in England.

Prof Lesley Regan, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), said it was another step in making it easier for women to access safe care.

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الخميس، 26 أكتوبر 2017

The Letdown shows the darker side of motherhood – and it's a relief

No matter how much you love looking after your baby, you cannot escape moments of devastation

When I was in the late stages of pregnancy, a trend emerged of news stories about women who regretted having children. I devoured these articles with the kind of sickened interest that makes you unable to look away from an accident. Inevitably the women would describe how they desperately wanted a baby, until the moment their child was placed in their arms.

Eight months into parenthood, I’ve come to think that the root of the shock and regret some women feel is the isolation of family units.

I felt I had made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have had a child. I couldn’t do this. I wanted to say it out loud. I wanted to warn everyone. ‘Don’t be fooled,’ I wanted to say. ‘I’m here to tell you that this is not joy, it is not bliss,’ … Each time [my daughter] cried, I panicked. I did not know her, how could I comfort someone who was a stranger?

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الثلاثاء، 24 أكتوبر 2017

‘Reality shrivels. This is your life now’: 88 days trapped in bed to save a pregnancy

Months before she was due to give birth, disaster struck for Katherine Heiny. Doctors ordered her to lie on her side in bed and not move – and gave her a 1% chance of carrying her baby to term

When I was five years old, my parents decided they could no longer watch the nightly news. Or rather, they could no longer watch it if I was in earshot. The coverage of the attack at the Munich Olympics had caused me to have such an intense fear of being killed by gorillas that I couldn’t sleep. No matter how many times my parents explained the difference between terrorist guerrillas and primate gorillas –and that there were no gorillas in Michigan anyway – I remained sleepless with worry late into the night for weeks. My parents eventually gave up and subscribed to the afternoon paper as well as the morning one.

The problem is not just that I am a champion worrier. It’s that I court worry – I seek it out, I invite it into my home, never remembering how hard it is too dislodge it from its comfortable chair by the fire. I watch true-crime documentaries when I’m alone. I Google photos of black widow spider bites. I know the statistics about paracetamol overdoses. I have memorised the beaches with dangerous riptides. I have installed a carbon monoxide detector in every house I have ever lived in. And when I got pregnant with my first child, I bought What to Expect When You’re Expecting – and the chapter titled What Can Go Wrong was the one I read first.

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الاثنين، 23 أكتوبر 2017

Stop telling women their suffering is normal. Pain should be treated | Heba Shaheed

Pelvic organ prolapse, incontinence and period pain are all common but none of these conditions is ‘normal’

Women’s health is in major need of disruption. For too long women have suffered alone and in silence. Pelvic floor issues are normalised “because you’ve given birth, so what do you expect?” It’s time to break the taboos surrounding pelvic health so that we can enable women to access the high-quality healthcare that they deserve.

Pelvic issues like incontinence, prolapse, period pain and painful sex are common but they are not normal. Just because a woman menstruates does not mean that period pain is normal. Period pain could be a sign of endometriosis, which affects 10% of women, and has a ridiculously delayed diagnosis of seven to 10 years, leading to chronic pain and infertility.

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الأحد، 22 أكتوبر 2017

Postnatal depression less likely after winter or spring births

Study finds risk of postpartum depression among new mothers also affected by other factors such as length of pregnancy

Women who give birth in winter or spring are less likely to suffer postnatal depression than at other times of year, a study has shown.

Other factors affecting the risk of postnatal depression, also known as postpartum depression (PPD), included the length of pregnancy, whether or not an epidural was given during delivery, and body mass index.

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السبت، 21 أكتوبر 2017

The article that changed my view … of becoming a single parent

Guardian member Jessica Nangreave explains how an article by our columnist Sophie Haewood, published in 2015, helped her approach her pregnancy and life as a single parent with confidence

Jessica Nangreave, 30, lives in Leicester and works in finance.

When I read Sophie Haewood’s article How hard is it to raise a kid on your own? Where do I begin … in 2015, I had just discovered that I was pregnant. The father of my baby was no longer in the picture but I was fairly settled in my decision to carry the pregnancy to term. I was 29 and I felt ready to have a child.

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الخميس، 19 أكتوبر 2017

It treats epilepsy but causes birth defects. Sodium valproate’s victims need justice | Jonathan Ashworth

For decades pregnant women have been taking this medicine unaware of the risks it posed. Labour demands a full public inquiry into this scandal

Emma Friedmann took the epilepsy drug sodium valproate during and after her pregnancy, leaving her son Andrew with severe autism, along with hearing and sight problems. Andrew, now 18, needs round-the-clock, full-time care.

Problems can include spina bifida, and malformation of limbs, vital organs, face and skull

There has been a systematic failure to properly inform women of the dangers of this drug

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Giving birth to my stillborn daughter was horrific. NHS staff saved us from despair

At every stage the experience and understanding of the midwives and doctors guided us through this traumatic experience

One night when I was expecting my first child, I woke up with a start. I was due to give birth any day and it was obvious to me that my baby had stopped moving. At midnight, my husband and I dashed to triage where we were seen by a friendly but unconcerned midwife. She nonchalantly pulled out a Doppler and placed it on my stomach to listen to the baby’s heartbeat. There wasn’t one. She didn’t tell us that, but it was obvious by the silence. At my last checkup two weeks before, the midwife had been able to find the heartbeat almost instantly.

A series of consultants were led to the room, each with increasing seniority. They took turns placing the doppler on different parts of my stomach to find the heartbeat. The silence continued. Someone was found to operate the ultrasound machine so they could see the baby; my husband told me not to look. Eventually a consultant took my hand and told me she was sorry, the baby was gone. The most senior consultant was called to verify that devastating news and from that moment a world of NHS services we never imagined existed enveloped around us.

For us, the NHS went far deeper than the medical care we expected

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الاثنين، 16 أكتوبر 2017

Midwife shortages blamed for home births falling to 15-year low

Only one in 50 babies born at home in 2016, raising concerns that women in England and Wales are not given range of choices

The number of women having a home birth has fallen to a 15-year low as concern rises that some expectant mothers are being denied one because there are too few midwives.

Only one in 50 babies in England and Wales were born at home last year, according to National Office of Statistics data – the lowest number since 2001 . Just 2.1% of the 676,271 babies born were delivered at home.

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الخميس، 12 أكتوبر 2017

What you should say to somebody who has miscarried – and what you shouldn’t | Janet Murray

I was saved by a friend who didn’t offer explanations for the loss of my baby or try to ‘fix’ things but listened, and knew that ‘I’m sorry’ was all I needed to hear

“At least you know you can get pregnant,” said my doctor friend when I told her I’d had a miscarriage, 12 weeks into my first pregnancy, and following a painful struggle with infertility. “There was probably something wrong with the baby,” said one relative. “Just think of all the fun you’ll have trying again,” said another.

After my second miscarriage – a rare form of ectopic pregnancy – the focus was on the fact I was already a mother. “At least you’ve already got a child,” well-meaning friends told me, as did the surgeon who delivered the news that the pregnancy – and subsequent surgery – had left me infertile.

I’m generally a positive person but both times I miscarried, I experienced extreme hopelessness

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الثلاثاء، 10 أكتوبر 2017

Egg safety – we've cracked it, Britons told by food watchdog

Pregnant women, infants and elderly people told it is now safe for them to eat runny or even raw British eggs

Pregnant women, babies and elderly people can now safely eat runny or even raw eggs under new advice issued by the government’s food safety watchdog almost 30 years after the UK salmonella crisis.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said it had revised its advice after a “thorough and robust” review of new scientific evidence found that those vulnerable to infection could now safely eat raw or lightly cooked eggs – provided they were produced under the British Lion code of practice – without risking their health.

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الأحد، 8 أكتوبر 2017

A very private grief: the parents breaking the stillbirth taboo

Stillbirths are 10 times more common than cot deaths, yet they are rarely spoken about. But a new project seeks to end the silence

Chris and his wife Danielle were delighted when she fell pregnant, and he recalls “getting to know” the baby in the womb. “I talked to him and played him music. I got stuff for him.” All seemed well and the couple had several scans until, at 25 weeks, Danielle became aware that the baby was not moving. When the couple went for a scan, they learned there was no heartbeat. Danielle vividly recalls the shock and anguish of being told her baby had died, and that she must give birth to her stillborn son, Mason.

The staff cleaned up the baby, dressed him in a tiny suit and took him to the parents in a moses basket. They spent the whole of the day with Mason until he was taken to have a postmortem done and then later moved to the funeral home. Danielle visited him every day. “He was just disintegrating in front of my eyes … But it didn’t make any difference to me. That was my little boy, I didn’t care what he looked like.”

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السبت، 7 أكتوبر 2017

Let’s talk about stillbirth: a place for parents to share the agony and seek solace

When I lost my daughter at 35 weeks I found myself scouring the internet for help. Now a new website aims to offer practical and emotional support while improving care

The thing that no one tells you when you have a stillbirth is how much you will want to talk to people about it. Just not the people you know. When my daughter Iris died at 35 weeks in January 2011, I wanted to shout her name to the world. Complete strangers would walk by and I’d be gripped with the mad urge (never acted on) to run after them and tell them that my baby had died. I would sit in coffee shops with her name running around my head, lie in bed at night thinking about her, walk down the icy New York streets hearing each footstep as a beat of her name.

Of course, I had people I could talk to. My husband, Kris, similarly hollowed out by grief, with whom I wept at night. My family, who flew to New York in the months after her death. My closest friends, who did the same. But somehow when they were there, waiting patiently for me to tell them how I felt, I didn’t want to speak about her. Instead, I chattered meaninglessly about books and films and TV shows, about my two living children and life in New York and how it went on.

Related: The child I lost

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Michel Odent: ‘How long can humanity survive now?’

Michel Odent has moved from being the benign natural-birth pioneer to a doomsayer predicting that caesarean sections will increase autism spectrum disorders and change humanity on an evolutionary level

Michel Odent has spent his life challenging the conventions of medical orthodoxy. Now in his 80s, the doctor who encouraged women to experience pain-free labour in warm pools of water and was the first to write about the importance of placing newborn babies to the breast has turned Cassandra. His new book is a warning to humanity that we face a grim future by our heedless embrace of medical technology; that the very techniques used to save lives are also changing the human race on an evolutionary level.

The Birth of Homo, The Marine Chimpanzee theorises that the way babies are delivered could be one cause of increased numbers of developmental disorders, psychological problems and addictive behaviours. He has interpreted epidemiological studies that show that a high number of children born by caesarean section or induction go on to be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder in support of his theories.

It is one of the biggest problems for humanity today and people don’t realise that

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الجمعة، 6 أكتوبر 2017

Man loses damages claim against IVF clinic over 'forged' consent

Judge rules IVF Hammersmith failed to ensure consent from both parties, but rejects claim as parents cannot be compensated for birth of healthy child

A wealthy businessman has failed in his attempt to recover damages from a private IVF clinic, despite a court ruling that his former partner forged his signature to conceive their daughter by the procedure.

In a potentially far-reaching judgment at the high court in London on Friday, Mr Justice Jay ruled that IVF Hammersmith had failed in its obligation to ensure consent from both parties, but crucially found the clinic was not negligent and did not have to meet the costs of caring for the man’s daughter. But the man had been morally vindicated, said the judge.

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الثلاثاء، 3 أكتوبر 2017

Pregnancy tests found to be inaccurate withdrawn from sale

‘All devices remaining on the market in Australia have been shown to work reliably,’ regulator says

Batches of do-it-yourself pregnancy test kits have been withdrawn from sale in Australia after they were found to be unreliable and inaccurate.

The move was sparked by the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s review of a wide range of pregnancy self-test kits that rely on detecting the hormone known as human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, in a woman’s urine shortly after conception.

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الاثنين، 2 أكتوبر 2017

‘The desire to have a child never goes away’: how the involuntarily childless are forming a new movement

One in five British women born in the 60s doesn’t have children – and the grief many of them feel has rarely been acknowledged. But now they, and men in the same position, are organising with others around the world to gain recognition and comfort

Jody Day is giving a TED talk to a room full of people against a backdrop of signposts she has chosen for the occasion: “Crazy cat woman”, “Witch”, “Hag”, “Spinster”, “Career woman”. “What comes to mind when you see those words?” she asks the audience. They shift uneasily. Gently, she answers her own question: “All of them are terms used for childless women … I’m a childless woman. And I’m here to tell you about my tribe – those one in five women without children hidden in plain sight all around you.”

Day is involuntarily childless. She remembers the moment she realised she was definitely never going to be a mother. It was February 2009 and, at 44-and-a-half, she had left a bad long-term relationship and moved into a grotty London flat. “I was standing by the window, watching the rain make dusty tracks down the glass, when the traffic in the street below seemed to go silent, as if I’d put it on ‘mute’. In that moment, I became acutely aware of myself, almost as if I were an observer of the scene from outside my body. And then it came to me: it’s over. I’m never going to have a baby.”

I withdrew from all my relationships. I saw doctors, therapists – nobody knew what the matter with me was

When you don’t have the happy ending, you need to know someone’s there with you in feeling that pain

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Pregnant in Ireland: 'I had no control and was made to feel ashamed'

The eighth amendment does not allow women the right to informed consent or refusal of treatment during pregnancy – why is this tolerated?

I had my first antenatal appointment in Ireland three years ago. I was about six weeks pregnant. Like most first time mothers I was consumed by questions: when would I feel movement? When would I have my first scan? What were my birth options? My enthusiasm was met with gentle condescension by my doctor.

They explained that most women wouldn’t even know they were pregnant at this stage and that it certainly wasn’t recommended to tell anyone other than my partner and maybe a few close family members until I was at least 12 weeks into the pregnancy. I changed the subject, struggling to conceal my embarrassment.

One mother I know described being completely dismissed by her GP after suffering two miscarriages

As our knowledge of prenatal development grows, such control is insidiously tolerated

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الأحد، 1 أكتوبر 2017

Pregnant refugees must have access to better care, say doctors

Exclusive: charity Doctors of the World call for greater pre- and post-natal care after finding inadequate treatment for vast number of health problems

Pregnant refugees who have fled across the Mediterranean to Greece are at risk of harm to themselves and their babies because they are not routinely given the care they need before, during and after the birth, say doctors.

A report from the charitable organisation Doctors of the World calls for pre- and post-natal care for refugee women across the whole of Europe as well as safe delivery, arguing that it is not only humanitarian but also cost-effective.

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