Women are second-class citizens when pregnancy makes us potential criminals | Jessica Valenti

A world in which all women of child-bearing age are considered 'pre-pregnant' is the stuff of nightmares

Late in my pregnancy with my daughter, Layla, I had a glass of red wine every once in a while. And while I took prenatal vitamins, I'm sure I missed a day somewhere in there. I definitely absolutely, without-a-doubt ate more junk food than is recommended by most health organizations. Does that mean I should go to jail? It may sound ridiculous, but that's the very real slippery slope we're on, thanks to laws criminalizing pregnant women and treating their personhood as secondary to their pregnancy.

Earlier this month in Tennessee, 26-year-old new mother Mallory Loyola became the first person arrested under a new law that makes using narcotics while pregnant a criminal offense. Loyola is facing charges of assault against her fetus she was arrested two days following birth, after she allegedly tested positive for amphetamines.

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The pull of my daughter's phantom child still drags her down | Jane Green

We all agree she shouldn't get pregnant, but she tells people that she is, and posts pictures of babies on her Facebook page

Jess is due to have her contraception injection today. She has them every three months to prevent pregnancy and ensuring she has them is always a strain.

After much discussion I have established that she is seeing the nurse at 3pm. But then she calls me to say that the nurse could not get to work because of the rain. This is unlikely. It has rained, heavily, but people are getting to work. They usually do in the rain.

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I have struggled with depression and anxiety it doesn't have to be the end | Ariane Sherine

A former boyfriend attacked me nine years ago, destroying my mental health but I am no longer ashamed. I want people to know life can get better

Nine years ago I was newly pregnant when I was violently attacked by my boyfriend at the time. We were having an argument; he hit me in the face causing my ear to bleed, then clamped his hand over my mouth, suffocating me, and told me repeatedly that he would kill me. He said afterwards that the incident only lasted 20 seconds, but those 20 seconds were to change my whole life irrevocably.

It doesn't matter who he was. He could have been anyone. I don't want to identify him, but he was probably different to the man you're imagining: he was more than 10 years older than me, well-spoken, intellectual, ex-private school, cruel, abusive; he was also funny, smart, kind, affectionate, and I was deeply in love with him and thrilled to be carrying his baby. People are complex, and to demonise him and paint him in black and white doesn't make sense that isn't how real life works.

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Infant hospital visits down as fewer women smoke while pregnant

Australian medical study finds a 10.5% drop in the number of infants under a year old being re-admitted to hospital

A drop in the number of women who smoke while pregnant has helped push down the number of infants going into hospital, according to researchers.

A study of all 788,798 children born in New South Wales between 2001 and 2009, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, shows a 10.5% drop in the number of infants under a year old being re-admitted to hospital, from 18.4 per 100 births in 2001 to 16.5 in 2009.

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KGoal: introducing the fitness tracker for your vagina

Wearable technology conquers the final frontier with KGoal, a device to help women the world over exercise their pelvic floor muscles better

It can already stream the internet straight to your face, vibrate around your waist when you're slouching and track your health using only your wrist. Now, wearable technology is getting even more intimate and attempting to conquer the final frontier: the vagina.

Recently launched on Kickstarter, the KGoal Smart Kegel Trainer, produced by San Fransisco-based sexual health startup Minna Life, describes itself as a Fitbit for your vagina, an interactive device to guide, measure and track pelvic floor muscle exercise. It takes the form of a squeezable silicone pillow, connected to a smartphone app, that measures your clench strength and feeds the data back to a smartphone app via Bluetooth. It also has an internal motor for real time vibrational biofeedback.

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Mother who abandoned baby in park had severe depression, rules judge

Woman avoids custodial sentence but Birmingham court told dog finding newborn outdoors in carrier bag was 'stroke of luck'

A mother who abandoned her newborn daughter behind shrubs in a public park while suffering from post-natal depression wept as she avoided prison.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was on Thursday handed a six-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, at Birmingham crown court.

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Home-birthing pools recalled after baby falls ill with legionnaires' disease

NHS and Public Health England ban certain types of heated pool and question suppliers over safety precautions

Hired home-birthing pools across the country have been recalled and hire companies put under scrutiny after a baby born using one of the heated pools developed legionnaires' disease.

The NHS and Public Health England (PHE) have banned certain types of home-birthing pools until further notice, after the child who remains in hospital with severe pneumonia became unwell.

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