Rise in NHS birth centre closures ‘shocking’ denial of women’s rights, experts say

Twelve midwife-led maternity units have closed in England since 2019 with six closing since Labour came to power in 2024

NHS officials are shutting growing numbers of birth centres in a “shocking” denial of a woman’s right to have a midwife rather than a doctor oversee their baby’s birth, say campaigners.

Twelve birth centres – midwife-led maternity units – have closed in England since 2019. Birth centres play a key role in ensuring that women can choose whether to have their baby at a unit in a hospital run by doctors, at one where midwives are in charge, or at home.

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/xjgne6d

New ‘high safety’ chemicals in plastic food packaging linked to lower birth weight, study finds

Dinch, an allegedly ‘safe’ alternative, used in the EU and US also found to cause fetal development complications

Exposure to a new generation of allegedly “safe” plasticizers is linked to lower birth weight and fetal development complications, which could cause serious health problems later in life, a new peer-reviewed study found.

As the health risks in exposure to common phthalate plasticizers became clear over the last few decades, industry began switching to a new type of chemical, called Dinch, that it claimed was a “high safety”, nontoxic alternative. It is widely used in soft plastic food packaging in the United States and European Union, and is found in children’s toys, medical devices, some textiles, flooring and other consumer goods.

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from Pregnancy | The Guardian https://ift.tt/8ZYbkfA