All British women have the right to a caesarean – they’re not ‘too posh to push’ | Susanna Rustin

Maternity figures have again prompted stigmatising comment. The rules are clear, and British mothers must defend their hard-won freedom to choose

In Britain a woman has the right to choose a caesarean. This right exists within the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) guidelines, and has done for five years. The rules do not lack clarity. The note on women for whom there is no reason to avoid a vaginal delivery, other than that they are scared or don’t want one, says “if after discussion and offer of support (including perinatal mental health support for women with anxiety about childbirth), a vaginal birth is still not an acceptable option, offer a planned CS” [caesarean section]”. When there is practitioner uncertainty, the guidelines are again perfectly clear. “An obstetrician unwilling to perform a CS should refer the woman to an obstetrician who will carry out the CS,” the note continues.

Related: Is ‘incessant increase’ in caesarean births putting first-time mothers’ health at risk?

It is true that older mothers – who are also likely to be richer and more educated – are more likely to have C-sections

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Joy, fear and hating the word ‘bump’: nine things I learned about pregnancy

Everything you have ever thought, read, watched, heard or been told about pregnancy and birth is a lie

When I was a few weeks pregnant, I had to go for an early scan, during which the sonographer mentioned that I had a tilted uterus. It proved to be a characteristic experience of pregnancy: discovering bewildering things about the body I thought I knew, divulged in such a mundane way that I never asked what any of it meant. I still don’t know what a tilted uterus is, and my son is now two years old.

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Gay couple in fight to bring 'triplings' home to New Zealand

Friends of the couple set up crowd-funding page to help pay for hospital fees and travel to obtain passports so they can leave Mexico

Friends of a gay couple from Auckland are raising money to help them bring “triplings” home from Mexico to New Zealand.

Triplings are three babies born from the sperm of one man and one egg donor, but are carried by different surrogates. In this case there were two surrogate mothers and three of the four implanted embryos were successful.

Related: Social experiment shows hundreds ignoring 'homeless boy' in New Zealand

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'When my boss found out I was pregnant, he fired me': your tales of workplace discrimination | Guardian readers and Sarah Marsh

Five of our readers share their stories about workplace prejudice while pregnant or when returning to work

Have you experienced discrimination for being pregnant or a mother at work? If not it might surprise you to hear that despite the laws in place to protect against this, it’s more common than you might imagine.

A report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission found that that three-quarters of pregnant women and new mothers have experienced prejudice, with one in nine women losing their jobs as a result. What’s more, only one in four women affected raised it with their employer, mainly because of the high cost of taking a case to a tribunal.

I decided to leave and the UK to come to work in Scandinavian where there is much more gender parity

Related: Being a mother still slows down progress at work | Barbara Ellen

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Midwife may face criminal charges after mother dies following home birth

Coroner finds Gaye Demanuele did not handle birth appropriately and death could have been avoided

A now deregistered midwife could face criminal charges over the death of a Melbourne woman after a home birth.

Gaye Demanuele was the midwife in charge when the mother delivered her second baby at her home in January 2012.

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‘Fitbit for your period’: the rise of fertility tracking | Moira Weigel

Investors are pouring money into apps that allow women to track their fertility. Can tech companies use data to change the world of women’s reproductive health?

Will Sacks did not plan to go into the menstruation business. When he travelled from Toronto to Reno to attend his first Burning Man festival in August 2009, he only knew that he needed a change. At the age of 29, he was having a personal crisis. “I had forgotten that I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” he told me earlier this year. “I had forgotten that I wanted to create a company that could put a dent in the universe.” He quit his job as an energy efficiency consultant, shut down the small online business he had been running on the side, and booked a plane ticket to the desert.

Before beginning the drive to Burning Man from Reno airport, Sacks posted a message on Craigslist offering a ride in his rental car to anyone who needed one. A young woman named Kati Bicknell answered. Petite and pale, with thick brown hair, Bicknell looks like she stepped out of a pre‑Raphaelite painting. She exudes an intense, slightly mischievous, energy. Sacks comes across as calmer. He locks eyes when he talks to you, pausing every few sentences to check in: are you still with him? Does his optimism sound naive?

Fertility awareness apps have an enormous potential market: women from puberty to menopause

In the future, analysis of our blood, our genes, our saliva will be done through the phone

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Surrogate mother who sold same babies twice sentenced for fraud

French woman known only as Aurore given suspended sentence for defrauding two gay couples who hired her

A French court has given a one-year suspended jail sentence to a woman found guilty of defrauding two gay couples who hired her as a surrogate mother. The woman has been named only as Aurore.

Surrogacy is illegal in France and the couples who paid for her services also faced charges.

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