Thursday briefing: What new evidence tells us about the reality of racial discrimination in maternity care

In today’s newsletter: Persistent gaps in maternal health outcomes have long been documented​, but now a growing body of evidence suggests that ​racism and deprivation have profound consequences for pregnancy and birth

Good morning. Researchers have long known that women in the UK experience very different birth outcomes depending on their ethnicity, income and physical condition. Black women, for example, are still about 2.7 times more likely to die during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth than white women.

As the Guardian reported on Wednesday, a new study suggests one possible explanation: that the cumulative physiological impact of stress caused by racism and inequality may itself affect pregnancy outcomes.

UK news | Police are treating the stabbing of two men in Golders Green, north London, as terrorism, with the suspect described as having been hunting for anyone “visibly Jewish” to attack.

UK politics | Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election.

Middle East | Pete Hegseth has denied that the US-Israel war on Iran is “a quagmire” and claimed critics of the operation posed a greater threat to the US than Iran itself, as he came under pressure to set out Washington’s strategy for the conflict.

UK news | Police have raided the headquarters of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light following an investigation into allegations of serious sexual offences, modern slavery and forced marriage.

Defence | Britain has agreed to create a unified naval force with nine European countries to deter future Russian threats from the “open sea border” to the north.

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The New Orleans program doing house calls for postpartum mothers: ‘For many women, you fall off a cliff’

Family Connects New Orleans provides crucial postpartum support to mothers through home-based nurse visits

About three months ago, Amber Leduff, gave birth to her daughter, Autumn, at New Orleans’ Touro hospital. The room was hectic after the delivery, with nurses and doctors bustling in and out. In the chaos, Leduff, who is 30, only half registered the representatives from Family Connects New Orleans, taking paperworks from them and moving on.

But when her doctor encouraged her to enroll in the program, which provides up to three in-home visits to parents of newborns up to 12 weeks old, Leduff took it seriously.

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Stress from racism may help explain why black women more likely to die in childbirth, study finds

Exclusive: Cambridge research finds socioenvironmental stressors may influence body’s ability to function healthily in pregnancy

Stress from racism and deprivation could explain why black women are more likely to die during childbirth, a study has found.

Researchers reviewed 44 existing studies that examined three physiological pathways associated with worse pregnancy outcomes: oxidative stress, inflammation, and uteroplacental vascular resistance, and found black women had higher levels of the three metrics.

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Earlier specialised care could prevent 10,000 miscarriages a year, UK study finds

Charity says starting specialised care after first miscarriage instead of third reduces risk of future losses

Giving women access to specialised care after their first miscarriage could prevent about 10,000 pregnancy losses a year across the UK, according to a study.

Currently, women in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are eligible for specialist care on the NHS for early baby losses after they have had a minimum of three miscarriages.

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‘I was super horny when I made my early work’: Loie Hollowell’s abstract paintings of breasts and vaginas

Equally inspired by childbirth manuals, Georgia O’Keeffe and her own hormones, pregnancy and motherhood, Hollowell paints beautiful anatomical abstractions. She opens up about her cosmic birth and out-of-body experience

‘It’s magical,” says Loie Hollowell. “It’s such good timing!” The artist, speaking via Zoom from her studio in Queens, New York, is referring to the Artemis II moon mission. Little did she know, when she named her latest painting series Overview Effect, after the term used by astronauts to describe the experience of seeing Earth from space and the profound feelings of awe and interconnectedness it provokes, that she’d be coinciding with this space odyssey. But she is not surprised anyone would want to leave Earth for a while. “We’re having so many problems here,” she says.

Overview Effect, currently at London’s Pace Gallery, features large-scale canvases combining twin concave and convex sculpted circles. If you folded the canvasses in half vertically, the halves would fit perfectly together. The works, which radiate outwards in rings of glorious colour that are both vibrant and soothing, are a continuation of earlier works focusing on pregnancy and birth through abstraction. Her Split Orb paintings and Dilation Stage series of pastel drawings responded to the difficult birth of her son in a New York hospital. Overview Effect is a result of her daughter’s easier arrival: a “cosmic” home birth that she found far more empowering.

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Home blood pressure checks could reduce risks after hypertensive pregnancy

Study finds monitoring and adjustment of medication where needed can help protect mothers’ heart health

New mothers who had hypertension in pregnancy could reduce their risk of heart attack, stroke and potentially early death through daily blood pressure checks at home, research suggests.

Women who regularly monitored their blood pressure in the weeks after giving birth, and had doctors tailor their medication if needed, had better functioning arteries nine months later than those who received routine care, scientists found.

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Kindness of strangers: I was so pregnant I couldn’t see my feet when a woman offered to tie my shoelace

As an expectant mother bringing a little person into the world, you want to feel it is mostly filled with good people. In that moment I felt reassured

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

It was my first pregnancy and I’d been sick for more than seven months with hyperemesis gravidarum. In those late stages, after the HG finally passed, I was exhausted and overwhelmed. It was the dual feeling of excitement and trepidation. Was I ready to have a baby when I’d only just got used to waddling around and the discomfort of pregnancy?

One day I was at the shops and not feeling great. As I was walking down an aisle, a woman came up behind me. I assumed she was going to ask me to move or make a not-super-friendly comment. Instead, she said: “Do you know that your shoelace is undone?” I didn’t – I couldn’t see my feet! – and thanked her for letting me know.

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I yearned to be a mother. Why did I feel nothing when my daughter was finally born?

I had presumed I would love her instantly – but a traumatic birth led to devastating numbness

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was waiting for an overwhelming rush of love, but when I looked at my newborn baby what I felt was utter despair. No matter how much I smiled at her, crooned at her, fed, patted, caressed and changed her, I was absolutely numb.

I had yearned for her. Growing up in Italy, I was surrounded by images of perfect motherhood. Every rural crossroad has its tiny shrine to the Madonna and Child. I was certain by the end of my teens that I wanted to have at least one baby.

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Why aren’t Republicans thrilled by the fall in teen pregnancies? | Arwa Mahdawi

In the US, the birth rate for 15- to 19-year-olds dropped 7% last year. But what seems like good news for society has been lamented by some leading Maga figures

Teenagers these days, eh? Instead of having unprotected sex and popping out babies, they’re wasting their time on TikTok, or something. According to a recent report, the teenage birth rate in the US fell by 7% in 2025. While this might seem like a positive development, it has been a cause of dismay among the Maga-adjacent crowd.

Take Fox News, which ran a segment framing the drop in teen pregnancies as alarming. “We still have 3.6 million births a year,” noted the medical analyst Marc Siegel. “But the problem is teens and young adults. From ages 15 to 19, the fertility rate is down 7%, and it’s down 70% over the last two decades, meaning we’re telling people that are young not to have babies, to wait until they’re in a more stable life situation.” I’m sorry, that’s a problem?

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Taking Tylenol during pregnancy has no link to autism, new study finds

Trump has pushed unfounded claims of Tylenol use in pregnancy being tied to ‘a very increased risk of autism’

Taking acetaminophen – known in the US by the brand name Tylenol – during pregnancy has no effect on later autism diagnoses, according to a sweeping new study from Denmark published on Monday.

The Trump administration has targeted Tylenol use in pregnancy as a major cause of autism in children, which appears to have led to a drop in pregnant people taking the pain reliever.

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Black women in Georgia turn to midwives for safer births – so why does the state criminalize many of them?

A new lawsuit seeks to decriminalize the work of midwives banned from providing care amid a worsening maternal health crisis

When Tamara Taitt moved to Georgia in 2023 to run the Atlanta Birth Center, she found herself in what she calls “an extraordinary position”. Under Georgia law, the center’s own executive director cannot provide routine clinical care for the center’s own clients. She could even face criminal charges for doing so.

Taitt is a nationally accredited midwife. She directs one of the only freestanding birth centers in the state – a destination for women seeking to give birth outside a hospital, cared for by midwives rather than obstetricians. Families choose birth centers to access more holistic, less medicalized prenatal care and birth, and to avoid invasive medical interventions in a state where C-sections occur at three times the rate recommended by the World Health Organization.

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Female athletes’ fertility is still a blind spot | Letter

Dr Mireia Galian argues that paid, protected time off for fertility assessment and treatment should be standard across women’s sports

As you report, changes to insurance cover for female athletes following the Carney review are welcome (Landmark changes to insurance cover for female athletes to be implemented, 30 March). Addressing contraception, pregnancy, menopause and other health conditions disproportionately affecting women is long overdue.

Yet one crucial blind spot remains: fertility. Elite athletes push their bodies to extremes, often with low body fat and intense training, which can disrupt hormones and menstrual cycles. Nearly two-thirds experience irregular or absent periods, which can affect fertility.

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Trying to conceive? Welcome to the worry-filled world of ‘trimester zero’

An army of ‘pregnancy prep’ influencers is offering would-be parents everything from sensible advice to quackery and questionable supplements. What’s really needed?

Anything to do with pregnancy can sometimes feel like a crash course in withstanding uncertainty. From getting pregnant in the first place to avoiding complications later on, any parent-to-be is forced to reckon with the limits of their own control.

The stats around this are worth emphasising: about one in seven couples in the UK will have difficulty conceiving. About one in eight known pregnancies will end in a loss. And as many as 29% of low-risk pregnancies will experience some kind of unforeseen complication. Often there’s no rhyme or reason to any of this. “You can do everything ‘right’ and still face delays. That’s biology, not failure,” says Dr Linda Farahani, a consultant gynaecologist and specialist in reproductive medicine at the Lister Fertility Clinic in Chelsea, London.

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Native birth workers are guiding Alaskan mothers through pregnancy once again: ‘I felt really supported and honored’

Indigenous doulas are creating support networks for mothers who are at the highest risk of pregnancy-related death

Mary Sherbick found out she was pregnant at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Although she and her partner had planned it, the pandemic was anxiety-inducing and isolating. While scrolling on social media, she came across online talking circles for Alaska Native women, organized by Alaska Native Birthworkers Community (ANBC), who were pregnant or postpartum. Sherbick, who is Yupik, immediately signed up.

“A lot of us were also just concerned about the way that we would be treated, and some of our concerns of pain or our birth plans within a hospital setting,” Sherbick said. “I think a lot of the women that I talked to just were aware of the history of how Indigenous women, Indigenous people in general, have been treated, and the sterilization programs that have been done unknowingly to Indigenous people.”

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