Alcohol industry 'puts pregnant women at risk', researchers say

Firms and bodies are casting doubt on health advice for expecting women to abstain from drinking

Alcohol firms and bodies they fund are encouraging women to drink in pregnancy – putting their unborn child in danger – by publishing false and misleading information about the risks involved, new research claims.

The alcohol industry is ignoring scientific evidence as part of a drive to “nudge” mothers-to-be into drinking as part of a deliberate strategy to ensure women keep consuming their products because young people are turning away from them, researchers say.

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How can every mind matter in a broken mental health system? | Letters

Readers respond to the launch of the NHS Every Mind Matters campaign and share their thoughts on other mental health issues

Congratulations to Suzanne Moore for highlighting those who are forgotten in campaigns such as Every Mind Matters (Telling people to jog will not solve this mental health crisis, 8 October). When Jeremy Hunt spoke of the biggest expansion of mental health services in Europe, he referred to expanded provision for people with mild to moderate problems. Those with serious mental heath problems have found that there is no therapy for them, specialist services like assertive outreach have disappeared, and their community mental health teams are too busy managing crises to support them.

I work with people who regularly self-harm and feel suicidal. Because the NHS has a tendency to keep them out of services and ignore NICE guidelines aimed at helping them, they find themselves the subjects of reports such as “No Longer A Diagnosis of Exclusion” and “The Patients Psychiatrists Dislike”. As they are turned away while seeking help and reading “If you feel that life is not worth living, you’re harming yourself or have thought about self-harm, it’s important to tell someone” on the Every Mind Matters website they will rightly feel gaslighted. We are building awareness of difficulties for which there is no help. We are encouraging people to talk while leaving them alone. Despite this, the insult of being manipulative and deceitful is thrown at the people wanting help, not those who promise the earth but whose words are dust. It’s clear that some minds don’t matter as much as others.
Keir Harding
Wrexham, Clwyd

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Kaz Cooke: women were in the dark about their pregnancies. Now there’s too much advice

In 20 years, Up the Duff has sold almost half a million copies – in that time the science of pregnancy has changed, but people haven’t

A woman with bird’s nest hair plonked down next to me in a cafe last year, holding a tiny baby with dark chocolate eyes and a fluffball of black hair. She launched into a graphic description of her baby’s recent birth. “… and then Aunty Helen* barged right into the room holding up her phone, taking photos of my hoo-hars”.

I had never seen this woman before, wasn’t aware the word hoo-har could be a plural, and couldn’t have picked Aunty Helen out of a lineup for a cash prize. But somehow she knew I had written the pregnancy book she’d read. In her mind, I’d been through the pregnancy with her, so she was just giving me the exit report. It was lovely.

Related: Pregnancy is the ultimate endurance test. If a man says it, it must be true | Suzanne Moore

Related: We’re a queer couple trying for a baby. Stop asking ‘How does that work?’ | Kat Patrick

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The 12-week pregnancy rule makes the pain of miscarriage worse | Katy Lindemann

The secrecy around early pregnancy means that many women grieve in private, weighed down by feelings of guilt and failure

Most of us will be familiar with the “12-week” rule – the longstanding social convention that dictates that women mustn’t tell anyone they’re pregnant before the 12-week mark, “in case something happens”. It’s time to talk about the insidious effect it has on women who suffer a miscarriage early in their pregnancy.

An estimated 650 babies are miscarried every day in the UK, with the vast majority occurring during the first trimester. Most of these losses will be suffered in silence, because it’s considered so socially unacceptable to reveal that you’re pregnant before 12 weeks – let alone that you were pregnant, but now you’re not. It’s baffling that in 2019 we seem so wedded to an anachronistic superstition about tempting fate that shames women into keeping quiet and heaps blame on the woman who dares to “tell” and subsequently loses her baby – as though we were still in a bygone era where the stigma of miscarrying could mark you out as cursed. Social mores around the 12-week rule are brimming with contradictions: it’s fine to broadcast the minutiae of our daily lives on Instagram, yet disclosing that we’re pregnant, even just to close friends and family, is somehow transgressive.

Related: How a pioneering study of child health has influenced a generation of parents | Juliet Rix

The 12-week rule perpetuates the notion that early pregnancy loss is something to hide and we shouldn’t make a fuss.

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French MPs approve IVF draft law for single women and lesbians

Controversial bill is Emmanuel Macron’s biggest social reform since he was elected in 2017

France’s lower house of parliament has approved a draft law to allow lesbians and single women to conceive children using donor sperm, a move that has set the stage for street protests next month.

At present, only heterosexual couples have the right to use medically assisted reproduction methods such as IVF and artificial insemination. Lesbians and single women who want to have children often travel abroad to fertility clinics for treatment, a situation they say is discriminatory.

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Babies exposed to air pollution have greater risk of death - study

Infant mortality rate higher in babies exposed to pollutants such as sulphur dioxide

Babies living in areas with high levels of air pollution have a greater risk of death than those surrounded by cleaner air, a study has found.

It is not the first study to investigate the link between air pollution and infant mortality , but thestudydrew particular focus on different pollutants and its analysis at different points in babies’ lives.

Related: Air pollution harm to unborn babies may be global health catastrophe, warn doctors

Related: UK parents 'worryingly unaware' of damage from air pollution

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How a pioneering study of child health has influenced a generation of parents | Juliet Rix

Prof Jean Golding has been tracking the ‘Children of the 90s’ for nearly 30 years, most recently finding a 50% increase in rates of prenatal depression

At a bright green table scattered with toys and juice cups sit Charlotte and her six-year-old daughter Amelia, while two-year-old Isabella races a yellow plastic shopping trolley across the floor. Being here is much more fun than school, announces Amelia, as she shows off the animal plaster that covers her (apparently painless) blood test to a smiling Professor Jean Golding.

The emeritus professor of paediatrics and perinatal epidemiology at the University of Bristol is founder of the hugely influential Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood (Alspac), better known as Children of the 90s (CO90s). She has just turned 80 and has just published her latest paper on child health.

Related: Children in UK least happy they have been in a decade, says report

Related: Summer camps for all: no mobiles, no selfies – just the chance to be children | Hazel Davis

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