The five kinds of rest – and why they matter for new mothers

When we say ‘rest’, we don’t just mean ‘sleep’, say Sophie Walker and Jodi Wilson. Rest takes many forms and parents should consider building all of them into their lives

We live in a society that champions individualism, productivity and professional and financial success. At every turn we’re encouraged to do it all, which can make us worry that if we’re not being productive, what is our purpose?

Across two years of research, including interviews with more than 60 perinatal health specialists and hundreds of mothers on the Australian Birth Stories podcast, we learned that most mothers enter postpartum with unrealistic expectations of themselves and their bodies. Some are left feeling purposeless and questioning their worth when the work of caring for a baby doesn’t fit with the narrative of a results-driven society.

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Don’t call it morning sickness: ‘At times in my pregnancy I wondered if this was death was coming for me’

The Victorians called it ‘pernicious vomiting of pregnancy’, but modern medicine has offered no end to the torture of hyperemesis gravidarum – until now

The year my body revolted, I read all 1,296 pages of War and Peace. I did very little else. My body had become stuck in a perpetual rinse cycle, wringing itself out day and night. Becalmed on the sofa, too nauseated to mindlessly scroll, I found an unlikely emergency exit in the bloody Battle of Borodino. In between puking jags, I would prop the book open on my chest, squint at the tiny text, and drift into a Tolstoy-induced torpor. It occurred to me that clouds of saltpetre and the booming of cannon weren’t ideal conditions for a growing baby, but I had to go somewhere.

At 6am my husband left for work and I began another gruelling day on the front; purging viscous pond slime from my empty stomach and keeping up with the Cossacks on their flanking march. In the throes of extreme pregnancy sickness, I found strange comfort in the privations of 19th-century military life; in soaked bandages and musket fire and impromptu field hospital amputations. And even, or especially, in the seeming endlessness of the book itself. For the months that I starved, I lugged my starving Russian comrades with me, from the upholstery-chemical stink of the sofa to the sweet bleach-stink of the bathroom to the seamy oily-skin stink of the bed. Perhaps it was a derangement of dehydration and hormones, but I felt real solidarity with my gangrenous friends on the front – far more than with anyone in a “felt cute” sundress on the What to Expect When You’re Expecting app.

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If we’re serious about protecting pregnancies, we need to stop spraying pesticides | Letters

We must shift the conversation beyond food. These chemicals are in the air women breathe and the homes they live in, says biochemist Molly Shave

As a biochemist trained in environmental health, I was relieved to see coverage of pesticide exposure and pregnancy risk (Exposure to a mix of pesticides raises risk of pregnancy complications, study suggests, 19 July). But one key detail is missing: food is not the main route of exposure for most women, especially in urban environments.

While dietary pesticide levels are regulated, many studies – including urine biomonitoring – have shown less difference in pesticide load between children eating organic and conventional diets in cities than we would expect. Why? Because exposure is happening elsewhere.

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Eating for two: the Edith Pritchett cartoon

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Surrogates at greater risk of new mental illness than women carrying own babies, study finds

Canadian data analysis underscores importance of support during and after pregnancy, researchers say

Surrogates have a greater chance of being newly diagnosed with a mental illness during and after pregnancy than women who carry their own offspring, researchers have found.

In addition, regardless of how they conceived, women with a previous record of mental illness were found to have a higher risk of being diagnosed with such conditions during and after pregnancy than those without.

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‘I didn’t cry till the following year’: standup Thanyia Moore on the tragedy she turned into laughter

The comic was all set to make her debut at the Edinburgh fringe. Then, with hours to go, she had a medical emergency. The former dancer explains how it all fed into her new standup show

‘My first thought,” says Thanyia Moore, “was there has to be a show in this.” The comedian is talking about what happened when her debut Edinburgh festival fringe show flipped from fun into misfortune. Standups often embrace personal tragedy, spinning it all into material – and that was certainly the case with Moore, three years ago. The former dancer from London had a 10-year buildup to her first fringe show – a deliberately light introduction to her world. She’d become known as a consummate MC, won the Funny Women award in 2018, and was breaking into TV as an actor and writer. Moore wasn’t even sure she wanted to do the fringe. “I’ve never been enticed or influenced,” she says, “by what people think you should do.” But then came an offer from Soho theatre’s production arm, and the chance to prove she could build an hour of standup from scratch persuaded her to head to Scotland.

Compared to other debutantes – who are generally battling crushing financial and career pressures – Moore felt relaxed. Her show’s run was paid for, she’d had time to finesse it, and she’d just got to grips with some huge personal news: she was pregnant. She decided to keep this to herself, but take it easy, turning down other gigs to focus on her solo show.

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Half of black women in UK who raise concerns during labour did not receive suitable help, study finds

Maternity experiences of more than 1,000 pregnant people found black women up to four times more likely to die in childbirth

Almost half of pregnant black women raised concerns to healthcare professionals during labour, with half saying that their concerns were also not properly addressed, according to the largest report of its kind.

Black women in the UK are up to four times more likely to die during childbirth compared with their white counterparts, and are also more likely to experience serious birth complications and perinatal mental health illnesses.

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NHS facing ‘absolutely shocking’ £27bn bill for maternity failings in England

Exclusive: Legal actions rise after death or injury of hundreds of babies and women in recent years

The NHS is facing an “absolutely shocking” £27bn bill for maternity failings in England, the Guardian can reveal, after a series of hospital scandals triggered a record level of legal claims.

Hundreds of babies and women have died or suffered life-altering conditions as a result of botched care in NHS trusts across the country in recent years, prompting the government to launch a “rapid” national inquiry.

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‘How did I feel giving the baby away? I never thought of it like that’: inside a weekend retreat for surrogate mothers

They don’t do it for money, and pregnancy takes a toll. So why do women lend their wombs to carry a baby for strangers they’ve met online?

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As I walk out of Hobart airport’s small arrivals hall, I immediately spot the person I’m looking for. My contact, Mollie D’Arcy, is standing at the exit, heavily pregnant. Her baby bump isn’t the only giveaway – she’s holding up a laminated sign in hot pink writing, sticky taped to a retractable light sabre toy. It reads, “Surrogates on Tour.”

It’s mid-September 2024 and D’Arcy is this year’s Surrogacy Sisterhood Retreat organiser and captain. Since its inception in 2018, it’s the first time this event, a roving annual weekend away for surrogates past and present, has made it to Tasmania.

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Republicans wanted fewer abortions and more births. They are getting the opposite | Judith Levine

The rate of voluntary sterilization among young women jumped abruptly after Dobbs, and there’s no reason to believe it will drop off

Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the US supreme court case that rescinded the constitutional right to abortion, is failing on its own terms. Since the ruling, in June 2022, the number of abortions in the US has risen. Support for reproductive rights is on the upswing. And the rate of voluntary sterilization among young women – a repudiation of Trumpian pronatalism, if a desperate one – jumped abruptly after Dobbs, and there’s no reason to believe it will drop off.

Also rising at an alarming clip are preventable maternal deaths and criminal prosecutions of pregnant people.

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Is it safe to use magic mushrooms while pregnant? One woman’s quest raises questions

Inspired by Indigenous practices, Mikaela de la Myco has collected stories of mothers who say psilocybin helped them during pregnancy. US scientists are skeptical

When Mikaela found out she was pregnant six years ago, she knew she needed to stop drinking. What she wasn’t sure about was how she would manage the cravings.

As a teenager, she had discovered that alcohol and opiates could dull traumatic memories, including recurrent sexual assaults that played in her mind nonstop and led to suicidal thoughts. But as she entered her 20s, eager to address her mental health, she realized what helped most was psilocybin.

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A third of UK women who died during or after pregnancy known to children’s services, study finds

Researchers call for better coordinated and holistic care for women who often come from abusive backgrounds

A third of women who have died during, or in the year after, pregnancy were known to children’s social care services, with a fifth of these deaths being the result of suicide, according to research which is the first of its kind.

Between 2014 and 2022, 1,451 women died during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth, with 420 of these women having been in contact with children’s social care services, according to analysis of data from the maternal, newborn, and infant clinical outcome review programme provided by MBBRACE-UK.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. 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 counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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A rogue fertility clinic, stolen eggs, and an unlikely friendship – podcast

Jenny Kleeman reports on the IVF clinic in the US that stole women’s eggs to get other women pregnant

In 1995, Renée Ballou received a call from a reporter at the Orange County Register. The reporter asked if she was alone, and suggested she would need to sit down.

Ballou says: “She said, we’re breaking a story tomorrow. We have some records here that the FBI has released, and we have every indication that your eggs were stolen and that you have a child that was born from the stolen eggs.”

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Parents in Britain to be granted bereavement leave after miscarriage

Mothers and partners will gain the legal right if they lose a baby before 24 weeks, in Labour workers’ rights reform

Parents in Britain will be granted a right to bereavement leave after suffering a miscarriage as part of Labour’s workers’ rights reforms, it has been confirmed.

In a change to the law made via amendments to the employment rights bill, mothers and their partners will be given the legal right to at least one week’s bereavement leave if they have suffered a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks’ gestation.

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