Pregnant women going for scans alone told they cannot film baby

Exclusive: NHS urged to act after survey finds some women wrongly warned that taking photos was ‘illegal’

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

Pregnant women attending scans and appointments alone are repeatedly being told they cannot record or take photographs of their unborn child to show their partner, according to a survey.

The poll of more than 3,450 pregnant women by the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed found that more than half of respondents (52%) attended scans alone and were also told that they could not record or take photographs during the appointment.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3pAEAu0

‘There is a lot of distrust’: why women in their 30s are hesitant about the Covid vaccine

The exclusion of pregnant women in vaccine trials has done little to win over a sceptical demographic, who have long been marginalised by the medical establishment

When the Australian government launched its $24m Covid-19 vaccine information campaign this week, key among the primary targets were women aged 30-39, who were found to be the most vaccine-hesitant group in the Australian population by health department research.

Similar patterns of vaccine hesitancy among women have been found globally. So the question on everybody’s lips is: what’s driving it? The answer is we don’t know, because we haven’t asked.

Related: Covid vaccine ad campaign aims to reassure Australians about safety and efficacy of jabs

Related: The female problem: how male bias in medical trials ruined women's health

Related: Air grievances: silence swirls around the toll of bushfire smoke during pregnancy

Women do often have lower levels of trust in the medical establishment, because they are not taken seriously.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2MhMnyp

I enjoyed researching the bloody history of childbirth - then I had a baby | Anna North

My new novel is about a midwife’s daughter in the old American west. The peril pregnant women underwent, then and now, became all too vivid once I became a parent

Childbirth in the 19th century was a dangerous affair. Women routinely came down with puerperal fever, an infection of the uterus that could lead to sepsis and death. Others suffered a postpartum haemorrhage: heavy bleeding that, if not stopped, could also claim their lives. Some experienced eclampsia, a condition in which skyrocketing blood pressure could cause fatal seizures. In 1900, six to nine women died for every 1,000 births, more than 30 times the rate today.

I learned these facts when I started researching my latest novel, Outlawed, an alternate history following a midwife’s daughter on the run across the American west in 1894. I needed a working understanding of obstetrics and gynaecology of the era to give it verisimilitude. So I read about the history of the C-section, which, at least in Europe, was generally a fatal procedure until about the 1880s, though there are reports of women surviving it as early as the second century CE. I learned about the discovery of egg cells, which was the subject of heated debate in the 1670s between the Dutch doctor Reinier de Graaf (who demonstrated their existence by dissecting rabbits shortly after mating) and his rival Jan Swammerdam (who liked to travel with a human uterus and other “items of genital anatomy”). I studied the composition of early baby formula, which, in 16th and 17th-century Europe, often consisted of bread soaked in milk, fed to infants from a “pap boat” that was unfortunately hard to clean and prone to accumulating bacteria.

As soon as my son was born I became acutely aware of what could have gone wrong, and what does go wrong.

Outlawed by Anna North is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on 28 January.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Yd7vZ5

A roll about and a curry? Danny Dyer's guide to bringing on labour

It may not be rooted in science but Danny Dyer is often right – so should expectant mothers be following his advice?

Name: A roll about and a curry.

Appearance: Picture someone eating a curry and then engaging in sexual intercourse.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/360nGxb

UK government accused of discriminating against maternity leave-takers

Charity brings judicial review and says payment calculations breach Human Rights Act

The government could be forced to award rebates to tens of thousands of self-employed women if a case accusing it of discriminating against those who have taken maternity leave is successful.

About 75,000 women who took maternity leave between 2016 and 2019 lost out on earnings because payments from the self-employed income support scheme (SEISS) – introduced alongside the furlough scheme last year – are worked out based on average profits.

Related: UK government urged to protect pregnant women in second Covid wave

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3p0QdKj

I was fearful of my daughter's Down syndrome diagnosis. I had much to learn and more to unlearn | Elizabeth Callinan

As noninvasive prenatal screening becomes more common in Australia, Elizabeth Callinan wonders what it would have been like to get a high-chance result

We talk a lot about Down’s syndrome in our house. My youngest child Greta, now 5, was diagnosed with mosaic Down’s syndrome just before her second birthday. My partner and I have fielded many questions from her older brothers Jasper, 10, and Rory, 8. Early on, when we were learning key word sign to help Greta communicate, they asked, “Will she be able to talk?” I explained that her vocabulary would likely grow and that if it didn’t, we would find other ways to make sure she could let us know what she wanted and how she felt.

Now Greta is doing the asking. At bedtime a few weeks ago came the question, “What does Down’s syndrome mean?”

Thinking back to my fear at the time of Greta’s diagnosis, I wonder what it would have been like to learn of her genetic makeup while I was pregnant

These stories are shared so we can learn but not judge

Related: My sister is nonverbal but she knows the words to every song. Now we’ve made an album together | Ian Brennan

Elizabeth Callinan is host and executive producer of One Screened Every Minute. The podcast is produced by Joel Supple and supported by the University of Melbourne, Melbourne Disability Institute and the Vasudhara Foundation.

The Upside is available now on ABC iView.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2LKa16q

Black women in the UK four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth

Disparity with white women shows need for action, doctors say, despite slight improvement in mortality rate

Black women are still four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth in the UK, and women from Asian ethnic backgrounds face twice the risk, according to a new report.

The data shows a slight narrowing of the divide – last year’s report found black women were five times more likely to die – but experts say that is statistically insignificant and not a sign of progress.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3oKHN9O

Twin pregnancy deaths study highlights fears over NHS maternity care

Report concludes lives could have been saved if guidelines had been followed

A study of baby deaths in twin pregnancies has found care was poor in at least half of cases, a finding that underlined concerns about fatally inadequate levels of maternity care in the NHS.

The report, by Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries (MBRACE), concluded that lives could have been saved if care had been better and guidelines followed.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2N4QOg5

I'm a pregnant doctor and I feel confident receiving the Covid vaccine. Here's why | Tsion Firew

I understand why some pregnant women are nervous about the vaccine. But I looked at the research and feel confident in my decision

I am a pregnant doctor who received the Covid-19 vaccine. Within hours of making my decision public on social media, scathing attacks from anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers ensued.

I have been working in the heart of the pandemic as an emergency doctor since Covid hit New York. I have witnessed Covid-19 ravage and destroy communities. I have lost colleagues to Covid, and I also survived Covid.

Related: This Covid wave has trapped healthcare workers in a nightmare. I see it every day | Clayton Dalton

Dr Tsion Firew is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, an emergency medicine physician at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving medical center, and a special adviser to the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3ia1Ps3

'Don't look dishevelled': anger over Seoul city's advice to pregnant women

Government guidelines give tips on how to avoid putting on weight and how to prepare food for men who are ‘unaccustomed to cooking’

The Seoul city government has sparked anger for offering advice to pregnant women that includes ensuring their husbands have clean clothes and enough to eat while they are in hospital giving birth.

The guidelines, posted on a government-run website, included tips for expectant South Korean mothers at different stages of their pregnancy.

Related: South Korea's population falls for first time in its history

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/35qGkOw

Air grievances: silence swirls around the toll of bushfire smoke during pregnancy

Exposure to fine particle air pollution increases risk of miscarriage and preterm birth. So why was the health advice for pregnant women so hazy during Australia’s Black Summer?

Janet Frank describes her first miscarriage in August 2019 as “hectic”.

“There was a lot of bleeding and a lot of hospital visits,” Frank, not her real name, explains. She bled for two months and eventually had to have a surgical procedure to end the pregnancy.

Related: Air pollution 'as bad as smoking in increasing risk of miscarriage'

Related: Being pregnant in a climate emergency was an existential challenge. Miscarriage has brought a new grief | Gemma Carey

Related: I flew to Greece and began solo IVF. Then the world shut down

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3hXVJed

'Doctors are the priests of our society': an extract from Tom Templeton's 34 Patients

From a surprise birth to a sudden death, two case studies illuminate the highs and lows of NHS life

• Q&A with Tom Templeton

In 1999, aged 18, I had a summer holiday job as a ward clerk at St Thomas’s hospital in London. I’d been placed there by a temp agency and had no interest in medicine at the time. The work itself felt routine, banal. In a high-ceilinged Victorian ward overlooking the River Thames, I logged patients on to the computer system, chased down medical notes and X-rays and made many cups of tea for the nurses. But although I hadn’t especially wanted to work there, and was doing it to fund the next year of university, the hospital quickly became a profound environment for me.

It was the patients who changed things. They came from all parts of society, from rough sleepers to aristocrats. Some were dying rapidly, some were temporarily ill, others chronically so. Some shouted and sobbed, while some did everything to avoid emotion. I didn’t understand much of what was going on, but I could see how vital it was and how different it was to what I saw in my everyday life.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3hZ7cdc

Taylor Townsend: 'Women have kids, but it doesn't stop you. Tennis has evolved'

The American on her pregnancy, changing attitudes and making it in tennis despite discouragement from an early age

As tennis players around the world make their slow return to competition this week after months away, there is one notable player who will not be joining them for a while. In the final months of last season, Taylor Townsend announced that she is pregnant and will give birth in March.

Some female players who are mothers would rather their tennis was front and centre in their profession and so her case is to be noted simply because it is a clear reflection of a recent cultural change in women’s tennis. In short, this is becoming a normal career option in women’s tennis for those who choose to do so.

Related: 'Is this still the first set?' Abu Dhabi heat tests WTA's tennis stars on return

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L16PmF

Have you seen the price of sperm? It's time to democratise fertility treatment | Arwa Mahdawi

My partner is pregnant and we’re thrilled – but getting there cost a small fortune. Access to IVF and other procedures must be widened

One big advantage of homosexuality? Built-in birth control. One big disadvantage of homosexuality? Built-in birth control. You can’t just casually start trying for a child when you’re in a same-sex couple, you’ve got to meticulously plan parenthood. Instead of getting off the pill, you start taking them.

You also start buying sperm. (Look up the price of sperm if you want a shock: it’s more bonkers than bitcoin.) And you start booking doctors’ visits. And getting blood tests. And ultrasounds. And trigger shots. And you go to the hospital and magic medicalised baby-making happens. And then you wait two weeks. And then you get your period and you have to do it all again.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3olhCXg

Most new and expectant mothers feel more anxious due to Covid, finds survey

Research by charity Tommy’s also found myths relating to pregnancy are still circulating

Nearly half of new and expectant mothers feel anxious or nervous, while more than three quarters say the coronavirus pandemic has added to their fears, according to research.

Pregnancy charity Tommy’s has called for more support for pregnant women before what is historically the most popular weekend to conceive a child.

Continue reading...

from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/38RQqJ1