Cold review – theatrically evocative folk-tale treatment of the pain of miscarriage

A man tells a stranger a story in a doctor’s waiting room to distract her, sparking a fairy tale of loss and desperation

Film-makers Claire Coache and Lisle Turner are a couple who survived the horrific experience of losing two babies during pregnancy: one to a medical termination and one to miscarriage. With Cold, they transmute this trauma into a near-wordless performance of allegorical art, one that was filmed during lockdown first in an empty theatre and is now being distributed online for free in order to make the subject accessible to everyone. That’s both very noble and savvy because this discreet, extremely intimate film starring two barely known actors might have struggled to pull in paying customers considering the subject is so painful.

Janet Etuk and Jacob Meadows play a couple first met waiting in a hospital to be seen by a doctor, stressed and worried about the child she’s carrying. In search of distraction, she asks him to tell her a story, and what follows from there is the rest of the film, acted out on a stage where snow falls and the two of them, named as Ulf (Meadows) and Falda (Etuk) in the intertitles, struggle through the winter. Transformed into a now-mute couple forced to survive on foraged and hunted food with only a wood cabin for protection, they are at one point forced to make unconscionable decisions about Falda and the baby’s future by a “Hex Doctor” (Coache herself) when the pregnancy goes wrong.

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‘I felt myself split into before and after’: how giving birth triggered a life-changing illness

Having a baby led to an unexpected disease and then surgery that altered Lauren Bensted’s body for ever. She talks about the pain she felt in being separated from her newborn, and her journey to learn to accept her new life

“We’re going to have to disconnect you,” says the man at my bedside. Since I was hospitalised a fortnight ago, this man and his team have been trying to save my colon, a 5ft-long tangle of ulcers and inflammation. The speed and scale of my colon’s fury has fascinated doctors. I imagine them in their morning meetings, poring over my colonoscopy with the mystification usually reserved for the Voynich manuscript. But time is up. Unless they “disconnect” me, my bowel will perforate and I will die.

Disconnection, explains the doctor, involves whipping the whole colon out – here he mimes pulling a rabbit from a hat – and diverting my digestion through a hole in my abdomen called a stoma. He sketches my new anatomy on a piece of paper, quick as a high-street caricaturist. He cannot imagine what it is like to receive this news – to hear your body will change for ever and with it your whole life too – just as I cannot imagine what it is to break it. I want to grab his hand, ask him how. How does a body give birth to a healthy baby and then burst into flames?

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‘Why has my uterus fallen into my vagina?’: Emily Oster’s new book demystifies common pregnancy complications

The Unexpected, the latest book by the economics professor, examines the uncomfortable and embarrassing parts of pregnancy that no one talks about

Emily Oster really hopes you don’t need to buy her new book. The 44-year-old tenured Brown University economics professor and firebrand has published a handful of bestselling titles, all focused on childbearing and child-rearing. “I always say I’m not going to write another book after I write a book because it feels like so much work,” she said. “The first three books really track my own journey, from pregnancy to raising little kids to having older kids.”

But the fourth installment in her “ParentData” – also the name of her blog, podcast and newsletter – quartet, The Unexpected, swerves into thornier territory than its predecessors: pregnancies with complications, and the risks inherent in any subsequent pregnancies. For the first time, she is not writing about her own experiences. “I was inspired by the questions that I got from other people rather than the questions that I had myself,” she said.

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Postpartum depression soared in 2020. Four years later, has anything changed?

Rates are improving in the US as healthcare organizations take steps to confront the continuing crisis. Still, new mothers often feel alone: ‘People don’t know what to do’

After five months of maternity leave with her second baby, a daughter born on 26 March 2020, Pam Lins felt she was ready to return to work and start a new role. This was the first year of the pandemic, so she had to work remotely while simultaneously raising her newborn and a toddler.

Six weeks into her leadership position – about eight months postpartum – she finally admitted something was wrong.

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My twin babies didn’t survive their premature birth – and I’m left to wonder why | Sara Mussa

Women of colour like me are more likely to experience pregnancy complications. That’s a devastating indictment

One, two, three, four, five, breathe, breathe. One, two, three, four, five, breathe, breathe.

Lying on the cold tiles of my bathroom floor, I had just given birth to my twin son, Zakaria, at just 23 weeks and six days gestation. My knees buckling, almost falling to the floor, with only my husband to hold me upright. He said some words. I can’t quite remember, but it was along the lines of “rely on God”.

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Longing for a baby in 1971

Three couples told the stories of their struggles to become parents

Seven years before the birth of Louise Brown made history, the Observer of 31 October 1971 asked: ‘What would you do if the doctor said you couldn’t have children?’ With limited options (and the ‘test tube baby’ still only theoretical), three couples told their stories. Sheila hoped an operation to clear a fallopian tube blockage with a 15% success rate would deliver a miracle; two years later, she and husband Sidney were advised to adopt. Even so, Sheila ‘always felt happy’ on hearing other women who had had the procedure were pregnant: ‘I thought it would eventually be my turn.’ After trying for five years, improbably, it was. She conceived naturally, going into labour during ‘a plate of whelks at the local pub’. A peep at her hospital notes revealed the gynaecologist had written of their son ‘This is a very precious baby…’

William and Gwen tried for 12 years. Gwen had a child from a previous marriage and a clean bill of health, but William refused medical examinations, insisting ‘I must be able to produce children… If you can’t reproduce, you’re not a man.’ He blamed Gwen; Gwen felt guilty: ‘I thought I was doing my husband a wrong.’ Their marriage suffered: William drank; Gwen was hospitalised with a nervous breakdown. Despite it all, when their daughter finally arrived after hormone treatment, Gwen said she was ‘born of true love’. William, apparently, ‘changed his mind about doctors’,

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Israel destroyed 4,000 embryos by bombing an IVF centre in Gaza | Arwa Mahdawi

The anti-abortion crowd who believe embryos are ‘extrauterine children’ has been weirdly silent about the strike

If you, or someone you love, has ever had fertility issues, you will know just how heavy an emotional toll they can take. IVF, in particular, is not easy. You have to inject yourself with hormones. Then you undergo anaesthesia and have an operation to retrieve the eggs. Then the embryos are made. Finally, you implant the embryos. It’s a long, expensive and involved process that can take a physical and emotional toll. At the end, you hope it’ll all be worth it. At the end, you hope there will be a baby.

In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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To boost birthrates, we must give women the freedom of choice | Letters

Readers respond to an article by Devi Sridhar on how to tackle the drop in birthrates globally

Prof Devi Sridhar’s fine article gives a broad overview of a critical issue facing humanity that is far too often avoided: overpopulation (When desperate measures to persuade women to have children fail, it’s time for fresh thinking, 2 April). She gives sub-Saharan Africa as an example, but the issue applies globally.

We are over 8 billion people on a planet that scientists estimate could sustainably support around 2 billion at a modest western living standard. Yes, fertility rates – the number of children a woman gives birth to – are falling, but too slowly. The world’s population is still rising by 80 million every year, each of whom will need food, water, accommodation and more, when these are already in short supply.

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Pregnancy may speed up biological ageing, study finds

Each pregnancy is linked with an additional two to three months of biological ageing, researchers say

Pregnancy may speed up biological ageing in women, a study has found.

Scientists at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York looked at the reproductive histories and DNA samples from 1,735 people in a long-term, continuing health survey in the Philippines to investigate the influence pregnancy has on the ageing process.

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Black women in England suffer more serious birth complications, analysis finds

They are six times more like to have pre-eclampsia compared with their white counterparts, as health inequalities persist

• ‘I had no idea my baby was at risk’: The fight to raise awareness of pre-eclampsia

Black women are up to six times more likely to experience some of the most serious birth complications during hospital delivery across England than their white counterparts, with the figures being described as “stark” and disheartening”, according to analysis.

Black women made up 26% of women who experienced the birth complication pre-eclampsia superimposed on chronic hypertension during delivery, despite making up just 5% of all deliveries across England, according to a Guardian analysis of NHS figures for 2022-23.

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‘I had no idea my baby was at risk’: The fight to raise awareness of pre-eclampsia

The condition affects between 1% and 5% of pregnant women, but more can be done to inform people about its dangers

While pregnant with her son in 2015, Chipiliro Kalebe-Nyamongo’s pregnancy was generally smooth – until she reached about 33 weeks. She started to develop high blood pressure, and was admitted to hospital to be monitored. It was during this period that Kalebe-Nyamongo became concerned when she didn’t feel her baby’s movements as usual.

“At first I felt the baby kick, but it wasn’t how he would kick as usual, it felt strange,” she says. “And then I started to feel no movement at all which is when I became really concerned.

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‘Headaches, organ damage and even death’: how salty water is putting Bangladesh’s pregnant women at risk

As rising sea levels and extreme weather contaminate drinking water sources, doctors are seeing alarming numbers of women with serious health problems including pre-eclampsia

• Photographs by Farzana Hossen

In the small, crowded ward of the Upazila Health Complex in Dacope, new and expecting mothers lie exhausted beneath fans that spin noisily above their heads. There are no dividers in the maternity room shared by more than 20 women, so visiting husbands are ushered out by nurses when someone needs attending to.

Sapriya Rai, 23, has pre-eclampsia and is being monitored at the Upazila Health Complex

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