We must end the racial disparities in maternity outcomes | Letter

Women just like me dying disproportionately and unnecessarily in what should be the happiest time of their lives, writes Dr Yasmin Mulji

Black women are four times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts (‘National disgrace’: black mothers in England twice as likely to have NHS birth investigated, 23 July). South Asian women and Muslim women also experience worse maternal health outcomes. If the woman doesn’t speak English, she is 25 times more likely to die. And these shocking statistics are without these characteristics intersecting.

I’m an obstetrician who has worked on labour wards across the south of England. But I am also a woman of mixed Black and South Asian ethnicities, and I’m Muslim. So, these aren’t just tragic statistics to me. These are women just like me dying disproportionately and unnecessarily in what should be the happiest time of their lives.

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Doctor behind trial of HIV prevention drug recounts breakthrough moment

Prof Linda-Gail Bekker receives ovation at Aids summit after presenting trial results of ‘miracle’ drug lenacapavir

When the doctor behind the trial of a new HIV prevention drug heard the results, she could not contain her emotions. “I literally burst into tears,” said Prof Linda-Gail Bekker.

“I’m 62, I’ve lived through this epidemic … I had family members who died of HIV, as did many, many Africans – many people around the world,” she said.

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Why is violence against women only getting worse? The answer doesn’t lie with Andrew Tate | Gaby Hinsliff

We are no closer to understanding why some men hate women so viciously – but we can transform how misogyny is policed

Natalie Fleet was only 15 when she got pregnant by an older man. At the time, she says she didn’t really know how to describe what was happening; didn’t see herself as being groomed, or as a child still not legally old enough to consent. If anything, she worried that she might be the one who had done something wrong, given she was the one being called a slag and a slapper. Only now, more than two decades later, does the newly elected Labour MP for Bolsover feel able to say publicly that an experience about which she apparently still has nightmares was statutory rape.

Having met the force of nature that is Fleet five years ago when she first stood unsuccessfully for election, I’m struck but not surprised by her courage in volunteering a story that perfectly illustrates what a complex crime rape can be to investigate, and how horribly common abusive behaviour is – or at least, how common it would look if everyone was as willing to talk this openly about it.

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The Guardian view on maternity care failings: black women and babies are hardest hit | Editorial

The mortality gap between mothers and infants of different ethnicities reflects the need to tackle discrimination and racism inside and outside healthcare

Childbirth is a vulnerable time for any woman. Black women have particular cause to be anxious. Their labours are almost twice as likely to be investigated for potential NHS failings, the Guardian revealed this week, with the head of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), Gill Walton, blaming institutional racism. For every 1,000 deliveries by black women, there were 2.3 investigations, compared with 1.3 for white women.

Black women are up to six times more likely to experience some of the most serious birth complications as their white counterparts and almost four times as likely to die in pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum, while Asian women are almost twice as likely to die. Black babies are almost twice as likely to die as white; Asian babies are also at greater risk.

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It’s scary to be Black and give birth in England. These are the ways the NHS is letting us down | Tinuke Awe

New evidence confirms Black mothers are far more at risk than their white peers. After my own traumatic experience, I’m not surprised

The fact that Black mothers in England are almost twice as likely to have their births investigated for potential NHS safety failings is shocking and unacceptable – but for me, it’s not entirely surprising. As someone who co-founded Five X More after my own distressing birth experience, I find these statistics hit close to home. The higher rates of investigations among Black mothers reflect a grim reality: Black women and their babies in the UK face significantly greater risks during childbirth.

For every 1,000 deliveries by Black women, 2.3 are investigated compared with 1.3 for white women, the Guardian found – figures that highlight the deep-rooted systemic issues in our healthcare system. They are also four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth, and they have severe complications more frequently than their white counterparts. Black babies in England are three times more likely to die than white babies and also more likely to suffer a brain injury. These are not isolated incidents but part of a broader, systemic issue that requires urgent action.

Tinuke Awe is the co-founder of Five X More, an organisation campaigning for Black maternal health outcomes in the UK. This article was co-written by her co-founder, Clotilde Abe

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Pregnant women suffer racist and discriminatory abuse at NHS trust, says inquiry head

Nottingham maternity review finds women were refused interpreters, mocked and treated unkindly

Expectant mothers at a scandal-hit NHS trust have experienced “discriminatory and racist behaviour” including midwives mimicking their accents and refusing to provide interpreters, according to the head of an inquiry into its failings.

As part of the largest inquiry into a single service in the history of the NHS, Donna Ockenden is speaking with more than 1,900 families who have experienced stillbirth, neonatal death, maternal death or babies diagnosed with brain damage at Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust (NUH).

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Family accuse London hospital of ‘negligence and discrimination’ after death of mother and baby

Ayaan Waeys, who had Somali heritage, had shown symptoms of pre-eclampsia and died at St Thomas’ hospital after giving birth to stillborn girl

• ‘National disgrace’: black mothers in England twice as likely to have child’s birth investigated

Ayaan Waeys was 36 when she died at St Thomas’ hospital in London after giving birth to her first child, a girl who was stillborn two months before her due date in 2022.

Her sister, Fowsiyo Ali Waeys, said there had been many signs that she was probably suffering from pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy complication, but she was not seen by a doctor at the hospital appointments she attended in the weeks before her death.

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After several miscarriages – each with its own trauma – my husband and I were forced to cobble together a new life | Tess Pryor

Just because an event is seen as ‘common’ doesn’t mean it is something that is easy to ‘get through’. This is finally being acknowledged for pregnancy loss

Miscarriage is fairly common: it is estimated that approximately one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage – but equally common has been the lack of attention and acknowledgment of its devastating aftermath for so many.

It’s 26 years since our last miscarriage and now at 62 years of age, life continues to remind me of the far-reaching effects of such a traumatic event.

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Living in a tent with premature triplets: how fear and anxiety haunt Gaza’s new mothers

Some women in Gaza have spent the duration of the war pregnant, but the constant bombing, death and chaos have cast a shadow over what should be a time of joy

After a night spent shaking in fear as the roof rattled from explosions, and a long walk along a crowded road, Diana Mahmoud arrived at the hospital where she gave birth to her son, Yaman.

Mahmoud, 22, discovered she was pregnant a week after the outbreak of the war in Gaza and, like other mothers who became pregnant about that time, spent her entire pregnancy fearing for her own safety as well as that of her child. Miscarriages are three times more likely than before the war, according to a February report by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.

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Baring the bump: celebrities are helping to force a shift in maternity fashion

There is an increasing focus on clothes worn during pregnancy that celebrate, rather than hide, stomachs

Celebrities from the Italian lakes to the steps of the Metropolitan museum in New York are showing that the pregnancy bump is enjoying its own moment in the spotlight.

When Margot Robbie was photographed on Lake Como earlier this week, a cropped top left uncovered was widely reported as being evidence of the Barbie actor’s pregnancy. The White Lotus actor Alexandra Daddario appeared in Vogue on Thursday drinking tea wearing a Phoebe Philo shirt, undone from the sternum down, baring a bump.

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‘I am happy to see how my baby is bouncing’: the AI transforming pregnancy scans in Africa

While ultrasound services are normal practice in many countries, software being tested in Uganda will allow a scan without the need for specialists, providing an incentive for pregnant women to visit health services early on

Mothers-to-be have become used to the first glimpse of their baby via the fuzzy black and white ultrasound scan, an image that can be shown to friends and family. But it remains a luxury in many parts of the world. Now AI is being used to develop technology to bring the much-anticipated pregnancy milestone to women who are most in need of the scan’s medical checkup on a baby’s health.

A pilot project in Uganda is using AI software to power ultrasound imaging to not only scan unborn babies but also to encourage women to attend health services at an earlier stage in their pregnancies, helping to reduce stillbirths and complications.

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From contaminated blood to birth trauma, how female NHS patients’ concerns are ignored

England’s patient safety commissioner says NHS patients raising concerns are dismissed as ‘difficult women’

• NHS patients raising safety concerns too often ‘fobbed off’, says commissioner

England’s patient safety commissioner, Henrietta Hughes, has warned that NHS patients raising concerns are too often “gaslighted”, “fobbed off” or dismissed as “difficult women”.

“It shows a very dismissive and very old fashioned, patronising attitude to patients who have identified problems and need to have their voices heard,” she said.

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Babyproof a yacht? How the super-rich are turning to the ‘mummy concierge’

Increasingly, no expense is being spared by the wealthy when it comes to tackling problems such as finding a £3,000 nightdress or brainstorming a name

A poet, a linguist and a marketing guru join forces to come up with the name of an unborn child. The start of a bad joke? The plotline for the next episode of Black Mirror? Neither – rather, it’s one of the jobs a “mummy concierge” to the super-rich can be asked to do.

Baby-proofing a yacht to ensure the plugs fit a breast pump, finding the best potty-training expert in town and reminding prospective mums to pack their facial mist in their overnight bag are just some of the other tasks Tiffany Norris has put in her diary of late.

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Air pollution can decrease odds of live birth after IVF by 38%, study finds

Research suggests impact of pollution begins before conception by disrupting the development of the egg

Air pollution exposure can significantly decrease the chance of a live birth after IVF treatment, according to research that deepens concern about the health impacts of toxic air on fertility.

Pollutant exposure has previously been linked to increased miscarriage rates and preterm births, and microscopic soot particles have been shown to travel through the bloodstream into the ovaries and the placenta. The latest work suggests that the impact of pollution begins before conception by disrupting the development of eggs.

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Rat soup, snails and oracles: why Nigeria’s traditional midwives still have a vital role to play

Doctors may not always agree with their methods, but in Lagos state, traditional birth attendants are helping to connect women and babies with modern maternity treatments

The sound of chanting fills the narrow corridor that serves as a waiting room, as about 30 pregnant women pray for safe deliveries and protection against wizards, witches and other enemies they believe could harm them or their babies.

The women take turns in the small bathroom, where they stand on a rock and use soap, nest-like straw sponges and seeds blessed by a prophet ​to wash away evil spirits.

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