pregnancy: يوليو 2019

الأربعاء، 31 يوليو 2019

It is inevitable that NSW's archaic abortion laws go into the dustbin of history | Mehreen Faruqi

Women in New South Wales have been campaigning for reproductive rights for so long. It’s time politicians listen

It’s been just over two years since my bill to fully decriminalise abortion was defeated in the upper house of New South Wales parliament. The anger and disbelief of those present in the public gallery that day is etched in my memory. Women of all generations were overcome with emotion, outraged that even in the 21st century, politicians would vote to deny them their reproductive rights.

While disappointed, I knew this moment was not the end of our campaign, but an essential milestone in putting this long neglected issue squarely on the political radar. Once the silence was broken, it was inevitable that NSW’s archaic abortion laws would go into the dustbin of history sooner rather than later. That time is now here.

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الاثنين، 22 يوليو 2019

‘My oestrogen levels were all over the place’: when men have ‘sympathy pregnancies’

From morning sickness to a swollen belly, some expectant fathers say they share their partners’ symptoms. But how is that possible?

Kirsten, 22, knew something strange was happening at about eight weeks into her pregnancy. The classic first trimester symptoms, such as weight gain, food aversions and nausea, were all arriving as expected – but she wasn’t the only one affected.

Her partner, Silas, 23, was experiencing similar physical shifts. He started gaining weight and felt repelled by familiar foods. As Kirsten’s morning sickness took hold, he was struck with equally debilitating nausea. “I felt sick every day for weeks,” he says.

When Amanda is pregnant, I just get emotional and lazy, and eat cake

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الأحد، 7 يوليو 2019

The rise of Big Sperm: does the tech world have the answer to our semen crisis?

Sperm counts in western men are falling, and nobody is sure why. But relax – because help is here, with everything from home-testing kits to sperm-freezing

Lads, lads, lads, hate to interrupt, but how’s your ejaculate? Would you struggle to fill half a teaspoon? And your concentration, please: are we talking 20m-plus little swimmers a millilitre? And how’s that motility? Are your spermatozoa wagging their flagella as if they can’t wait to get to that ovum – or listlessly floating around like dead tadpoles in a poorly executed classroom experiment? It’s not that embarrassing, surely?

If you are hoping to fertilise a human egg someday and haven’t given much thought to these matters … well, Big Sperm reckons it is time you did. A wave of tech startups, such as ExSeed, Yo, Trak and Legacy, are offering next-generation home sperm-testing technology and – in some cases – sperm-freezing services. And even if British men aren’t quite ready to start comparing their fertility concerns yet, these are clearly lurking at the back of many minds.

It’s not like heating up a frozen pie from Tesco. You can freeze good sperm, take it out and it can be depleted

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الخميس، 4 يوليو 2019

How women anxious to have a baby are being exploited for profit | Eleanor Morgan

With the ‘fertility IV’ drip, the wellness industry hit a new low. Perhaps regulating bodies should take a look

Get A Drip, a wellness company offering “affordable IV vitamin drips and booster shots”, has withdrawn a product it called a “fertility IV” from sale after the British Pregnancy Advisory Service said there was no evidence this “treatment” could improve fertility.

The drip was advertised as costing £250. The only supplements medically recommended for women trying to conceive are folic acid and vitamin D, so you wonder what on earth it contained to warrant such a price tag (£250 would get you 28 bottles of folic acid from Holland & Barrett, incidentally). More to the point, how could the wellness industry have stooped to such a new, exploitative low?

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Australia may cover cost of stillbirth autopsies under Medicare

Stillbirth Foundation Australia says national stillborn baby toll ‘dwarfs the national road toll’

The federal government has sought advice on covering the cost of autopsies on stillborn babies under Medicare as part of a $50m response to a parliamentary inquiry that found the rate of stillbirths in Australia had been unchanged for 20 years.

The announcement coincided with the release of a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) into the rates of stillbirths and neonatal deaths in 2015 and 2016, which found that rates of perinatal death had remained “relatively constant since 1997”.

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الأربعاء، 3 يوليو 2019

Alabama: attorney drops charges against pregnant woman shot in stomach

Lawyers defending the woman argued the state used a ‘flawed and twisted rationale’ that ‘ignores the law and ignores reason’

An Alabama district attorney said Wednesday she is dropping charges against a woman who was indicted for manslaughter after she lost her foetus when was shot during a fight.

Marshae Jones was arrested last week after a grand jury concluded she intentionally caused the death of her foetus by initiating a fight, knowing she was pregnant.

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The infertility premium: how big business exploits our deepest fears about pregnancy

The forced withdrawal of a vitamin drip injection this week has highlighted the growing exploitation of couples who are struggling to conceive

Of couples trying for a baby, 84% will conceive naturally within the first year, others after a little more time, but the one in seven who continue to have problems are increasingly at the mercy of unproven “treatments” that promise to boost fertility for a hefty price tag.

This week, intravenous wellness company Get A Drip was forced to withdraw a £250 “fertility boost” after the British Pregnancy Advisory Service highlighted the product’s lack of proven benefits. It accused the company of “causing real damage to women’s emotional wellbeing”.

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Colombia's teens learn about parenthood from robot babies – in pictures

Schoolchildren in Caldas take part in a voluntary project using a rubber doll with built-in software programmed to act like a newborn

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الثلاثاء، 2 يوليو 2019

Pregnant smokers warned of ‘potentially deadly risks’

More than 61,000 women still smoking last year at time they gave birth, NHS England says

Women who smoke during pregnancy are endangering themselves and their baby, NHS England has warned, as figures show more than one in 10 continue to use cigarettes.

The trend in pregnant women and the stubbornly higher rates of smoking among the least affluent groups in society trouble experts, even though the latest data shows the overall smoking rate is at an all-time low.

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الاثنين، 1 يوليو 2019

The Handmaid’s Tale comes to life in Alabama. Women must heed the warning | Zoe Williams

The ludicrous indictment of Marshae Jones for the manslaughter of her unborn child is an extreme example of a disturbing pattern

Marshae Jones was five months pregnant when another woman, Ebony Jemison, shot her in the stomach, in an Alabama town called Pleasant Grove. The 27-year-old Jones survived but the foetus, hit by the bullet, did not. Jemison successfully pleaded self-defence, since her gun was drawn in the middle of a fight that Jones reportedly started and was winning – according to an unnamed police source – until the gun was fired.

Since the shooter was exonerated, it seems odd still to be preoccupied with who started the fight. But this is one of two key elements in the extraordinary case against Jones, who was indicted for the manslaughter of her unborn child. As a pregnant woman, Jones’s alleged decision to provoke an altercation represented wilful endangerment. Since the law in Alabama confers “personhood” on a foetus, Jones was treated as she would have been had she endangered a child. Her lawyers have yet to decide whether or not to build a challenge to that idea of “personhood” into their case.

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The US right’s concern for the foetus doesn’t survive the trip down the birth canal | Emer O’Toole

Women face jail for miscarriage while migrant children are held in unsafe conditions. Hypocrisy is thrown into sharp relief

In Alabama, a woman who was shot in the stomach five times and lost her pregnancy as a result has been charged with the manslaughter of her foetus. Marshae Jones allegedly instigated a fight that resulted in the shooting, and, thus, according to a local police source, the “only true victim” was the “unborn baby”. Lieutenant Danny Reid further explained that the foetus is “dependent on its mother to keep it from harm, and she shouldn’t seek out unnecessary physical altercations”.

If Jones can be tried for manslaughter, what other types of pregnancy loss can be treated as serious crimes? If a pregnant woman is hit by a car while jaywalking, is this manslaughter? How about if – despite knowing of the tiny risk – she chooses to eat soft blue cheese and miscarries due to listeria? What if she changes the cat litter and contracts toxoplasmosis?

Lawyers for the Trump administration argued in court that the migrant children do not require soap, toothbrushes, blankets or beds

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