Parent Pages new website

A mother whose baby died after being deprived of oxygen when he was born has told an inquest that she is “tortured” by the memory of his birth. Noah Tyler died 10 months after suffering irreversible brain damage at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, a pathologist said. A midwife admitted making “catastrophic mistakes” [...]

Read the full story

Mothers will receive one-to-one care from a named midwife during labour and birth as part of government plans to combat postnatal depression. Women who have a miscarriage or stillbirth and parents who are forced to cope with the death of a baby will also be offered increased support from the NHS. Under the plans, health [...]

Read the full story

The global mortality rate for women giving birth has fallen by half over the past two decades, a UN report released today said. While there has been considerable progress, more work remains because a woman dies of pregnancy-related complications every two minutes, the report said. The report from the World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s [...]

Read the full story

When Daniella Jackson was diagnosed with cancer at five months pregnant her doctors quickly advised her to have an abortion. They said she needed a termination to allow her lung tumour to be removed before it killed her. But the 21-year-old, who is a devout Roman Catholic, refused, saying she felt too close to her [...]

Read the full story

Model Sasha Pivovarova has given birth to a baby girl just two days after posting the first picture of her pregnant bump. The Russian-born 26-year-old, who has yet to reveal her new baby’s name, announced the birth via Twitter yesterday, telling her fans: ‘It’s a beautiful baby girl… ’ It is a first baby for [...]

Read the full story

Overweight mothers-to-be could be condemning their unborn children to decades of ill health. Babies whose mothers were carrying extra pounds when pregnant are more likely to be fat and unhealthy  as adults, researchers say. While it is well known that overweight mothers-to-be risk having big babies who grow into overweight children, this study is one [...]

Read the full story

One in four women do not have  a midwife present during the crucial moments of giving birth, according to a new study. The research, for the Royal College of Midwives, reveals that women across the country are being let down by under-staffed maternity services. On average, a quarter of women said they did not have  [...]

Read the full story

Japan’s people could become extinct in 1,000 years because of declining birth rates, academics say. The population of Japanese children aged up to 14, currently stands at 16.6million in the country but is shrinking at a rate of one every 100 seconds, researchers in Sendai said. They warned that at the current rate, Japan would [...]

Read the full story

IVF procedures widely used in the UK are posing a ‘serious health risk’, healthcare experts have warned. Clinics are using ‘aggressive’ practices that improve success rates but have led to treatments becoming one of the biggest causes of maternal deaths in England and Wales, they said. There is increasing evidence that the most common treatment, [...]

Read the full story

IVF clinics in the UK are practising aggressive fertility treatments that are putting women and children at unjustified risk, experts say. The commercially driven industry uses unnecessary procedures, high doses of powerful drugs and risky interventions to help desperate couples spending thousands of pounds to conceive. But a milder, safer approach to IVF could provide [...]

Read the full story

According to statistics, thousands of women are using the service to terminate unwanted foetuses; in some cases up to nine times. The abortions are understood to cost up to £1,000 every time, with five out of every six repeat terminations being requested by a woman who is unmarried.   In 2010, 189,000 terminations took place, with [...]

Read the full story

My gorgeous little girl Heidi was born on April 22 – weighing a healthy 7lb 6oz – blissfully unaware of the furore of which she would soon be the focus. The reaction to my article about jogging while pregnant, published in last week’s Mail on Sunday, has been overwhelming. Twitter has been awash with people [...]

Read the full story

A controversial non-profit group is giving thousands of drug-addicted women money to be sterilised. The group hangs stark adverts in clinics and homeless shelters in North Carolina, which read, ‘Don’t let a pregnancy ruin your drug habit,’ and ‘She has her daddy’s eyes… and her mommy’s heroin addiction.’ Project Prevention founder Barbara Harris, 59, said [...]

Read the full story

A young mother-to-be who was told she would never become pregnant due to a rare condition has decided to keep her miracle baby even though the birth could leave her experiencing labour-like pains forever. Seven months pregnant Debbie Mills, 23, was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) in October 2009. CRPS is a chronic [...]

Read the full story

What every mother wants for Mother’s Day: healthy children. A free mobile service called Text4Baby sends breaking health information to new and expecting mothers. Participants in the program receive between one and three text messages each week informing them of health alerts or offering advice for breastfeeding, labor or other prenatal issues. The alerts also [...]

Read the full story

Her eyes wide with fear and pain, Théthé – who is haemorrhaging and has a fever – groans and pushes as she lies on a brown vinyl mattress, slick with blood and amniotic fluid, in one of the worst places in the world to be a mother (pdf). After a final push, a nurse holds [...]

Read the full story

Tania Mirmothari was worried sick. The previous night, the 19-year-old from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, had had yet another drunken one-night stand. Carefree at the time, the following morning she’d woken with a thumping hangover, horrified at the realisation she might be pregnant. There was only one thing for it: Tania went to her local walk-in [...]

Read the full story

Eleven-year-old Courtney Barnes shows me the patchwork of scars that criss-cross her midriff, pushing her tummy button several inches out of place. Her mother, Juliet, smiles proudly. ‘Brave, isn’t she?’ she says, kissing her daughter on the forehead. Next to her, another mum shows me a picture of her one-day-old son, Leon, lying on his [...]

Read the full story

New fathers could take up to six months of paid leave from work under controversial plans  at the heart of the Queen’s Speech yesterday. Ministers said proposals were chiefly designed to make Britain more business-friendly and boost the economy, with measures to rein in a £1billion-a-year employment tribunal bonanza, reform the banking sector and lift [...]

Read the full story

It is unnerving to find something you agree with in a Queen’s speech in the middle of a government that is as rebarbative as any you can remember, but there it is. I agree with the coalition policy on parental leave. Explained by the MP Liz Truss on ConservativeHome far better than she defended it [...]

Read the full story

Niger is the worst country on earth in which to be a mother, according to a report by Save the Children. The charity’s annual Mothers’ Index uses statistics covering female and child health and nutrition, as well as prospects for women’s education, economic prosperity and political participation in its assessment of 165 countries. Niger’s current [...]

Read the full story

Trying to explain the beauty of Shakespeare to a group of unruly teenagers too busy sending text messages to listen felt like a soul-destroying way to earn a living. It was frustrating work, and secondary school teacher Sarah Kerr felt so demoralised that she needed an escape plan. So she took what she saw as [...]

Read the full story

We have our friends in America to thank for delivering us the latest fad doing the rounds of polite society: the gender-reveal party. If you haven’t yet received a candy-coloured invitation to one, then let me explain – these are celebrations at which friends and family gather around an expectant mother to find out the [...]

Read the full story

A pregnant woman and her unborn child have survived being struck by lightning thanks to the rubber-soled shoes she had planned to throw away. Kelly Lough was holding an umbrella and getting into her husband’s car outside their home in Cincinnati, Ohio when she felt a ‘full body jolt’. ‘There was a huge flash and [...]

Read the full story

More than 100 mothers have died in childbirth in London in the last five years, twice the rate in the rest of the country, exposing a crisis in maternity care in the capital. The maternal death rate in the capital has doubled since 2005 and demands “urgent attention”, specialists say. There were 11 deaths in [...]

Read the full story

Rising numbers of women are dying in labour as obesity and delayed motherhood make births more risky. There are concerns maternity units can’t cope with the increasing number of complicated and potentially dangerous labours. A study of women giving birth in London, published in the Lancet medical journal, found the death rate has doubled since [...]

Read the full story

Rarely can a cake have played such a central role at a party. Wrapped in multicoloured icing, the first slice was cut to reveal – in pink sponge – the sex of Michelle Whitney’s baby. With all her family and friends gathered around, the pregnant 27-year-old was leading a new trend in the UK that [...]

Read the full story

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is in the process of compiling new guidance on the care of women giving birth. All recent research will be taken into account but campaign groups have warned some of these studies are flawed and wrongly conclude that women and babies are as safe in midwife-led units [...]

Read the full story

Women who smoke during pregnancy could be more likely to have a child with high-functioning autism, say researchers. ‘It has long been known that autism is an umbrella term for a wide range of disorders that impair social and communication skills,’ said lead author Professor Amy Kalkbrenner from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. ‘What we are [...]

Read the full story

Seven midwives at a hospital in Northumberland have either just had a baby or are currently pregnant. Three midwives at Wansbeck Hospital in Ashington have already given birth while four more are pregnant with babies due in the summer. The women say they are all helping each other through what has been an extremely emotional process. Janice [...]

Read the full story

Pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor is celebrating after giving birth to her third son. The singer, 33, and her husband, The Feeling bassist Richard Jones, 32, welcomed baby Ray Holiday Jones at lunchtime today. The excited dad took to the band’s Twitter page to announce the birth: ‘It’s a boy! Ray Holiday Jones was born today at [...]

Read the full story

A maternity ward has experienced a spectacular baby boom after nine members of staff fell pregnant. Seven midwives, a consultant, and a secretary in the maternity unit at Wansbeck Hospital, in Ashington, Northumberland, have recently given birth or are expecting. The flurry of pregnancies has left staff – and patients – at the hospital stunned, with [...]

Read the full story

Andrew Young issued a statement saying he was the father of Edwards’ mistress Rielle Hunter’s unborn child in December 2007, after a tabloid newspaper took a photograph of her while heavily pregnant. At the time, Edwards was days away from contesting the Iowa caucus, the first stage in the US presidential election, and internet rumours had [...]

Read the full story

A pregnant wife was smothered to death by her husband, his parents and his brother-in-law who later all claimed she may have been killed by an evil spirit, a court has heard. Nalia Mumtaz, 21, was pronounced dead at hospital after being rushed there by paramedics who found her lying lifeless and ashen faced on a [...]

Read the full story

A growing number of hospitals say they are fielding requests from families to have children present during delivery, with many believing the experience makes older siblings less jealous. In several studies, researchers have surveyed parents about the impact on siblings, and found mixed results, the Boston Globe reports. Some parents said young children were scared by the [...]

Read the full story

Christine Bolden collapsed on March 1 while walking in Michigan, Detroit, with her boyfriend and three-year-old son. Five days later she was pronounced brain-dead by doctors and an obituary for the 26-year-old lists her date of death as March 6. But almost a month later she has given birth to twins after being kept on life [...]

Read the full story

Due to air next month, it will feature interviews with women undergoing terminations as well as doctors and counsellors at the clinic. Pro-life campaigners criticised the move, saying it amounted to “free advertising” for abortion, but pro-choice advocates welcomed the programme, saying it was a chance for it to be presented in a way that was [...]

Read the full story

What’s not to love about swimming? I spent a lot of time jumping off boats as a child, and I wouldn’t consider a holiday complete without water to loll around in. Even now, aged 37, if a child chucks a stone to the bottom of the deep end, I’ll duck-dive for it.   But I’ve [...]

Read the full story

An infertile couple duped by Nigerian conmen into believing their child was miraculously conceived were the victims of greedy international child traffickers, a judge has ruled. Now the pair are fighting a legal battle to adopt the one-year-old girl after she was taken into care. In 2010, the husband and wife from Hackney decided to travel [...]

Read the full story

Home births are the cheapest option for the NHS when the mother already has children, a study claims today. Second-time mothers who have a planned birth outside hospital need fewer interventions, such as forceps delivery, and it is just as safe for the baby. The study found it would also be cheaper for first-time mothers to give [...]

Read the full story

BIOLOGY is destiny. That sentiment, often ascribed to Sigmund Freud, has infuriated women for the best part of a century. It became even harder to accept after the contraceptive pill came on the scene in the 1960s. Women had the chance to seize control of their lives and they did just that, changing society’s destiny [...]

Read the full story

Planned births at home and in midwifery units are more cost-effective than giving birth in hospital, particularly for women who have given birth before, University of Oxford research suggests. The research, in the British Medical Journal, compared the costs of giving birth in different places and the health outcomes for mother and baby. More than 60,000 [...]

Read the full story

The parents of a baby born by emergency Caesarean section are suing the NHS for £100,000 after developing post-traumatic stress disorder. Saima Fiaz and Saqib Thandi are demanding damages from St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust in Tooting following the birth of their son Nauman. The emergency Caesarean took place in February 2010 after Mrs Fiaz’s [...]

Read the full story

A London hospital has lost its legal bid to save a children’s heart unit after the Court of Appeal ruled that the national review recommending its closure was in fact lawful. The Royal Brompton Hospital had temporarily derailed NHS plans to concentrate children’s heart surgery in fewer hospitals after a judge found the ‘Safer and [...]

Read the full story

Nearly a third of new mothers go into debt due to taking maternity leave, while one in 10 cut their time off short to ease financial pressures, a study has suggested today. Some 28pc of those surveyed had gone into the red due to their time out of work, typically accruing almost £2,500 in debts, [...]

Read the full story

A mother-of-nine who runs a City investment firm said today she wants to “change history” for women struggling to combine a career and family life. Helena Morrissey, chief executive of Newton Investment Management, said her campaign to have at least 30 per cent of boardrooms filled with women was bearing fruit — and that she [...]

Read the full story

Looking peachy, Stacey! Miss Solomon shows off her baby bump in a salmon pink satin dress as she attends lifestyle awards By GEORGINA LITTLEJOHN PUBLISHED: 22:29, 17 March 2012 | UPDATED: 17:35, 18 March 2012 Comments (104) Share She always likes to look her best and loves getting her glad rags on for a star-studded [...]

Read the full story

It is mid-morning in the delivery suite at King’s College hospital in London, and midwife Terie Duffy is cooing over the contents of a stainless-steel bowl. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she says. “This is what makes my job worthwhile … the opportunity to give the chance of life.” But the object of her attention is not a [...]

Read the full story

Computer ‘whiz kid’ who broke into the website of Britain’s biggest abortion provider is jailed By REBECCA CAMBER PUBLISHED: 19:58, 13 April 2012 | UPDATED: 13:18, 14 April 2012 Comments (12) Share A computer hacker who broke into the website of Britain’s largest abortion provider to steal the details of 10,000 women was jailed yesterday. [...]

Read the full story

Abortion is key US political flashpoint as laws tighten COMMENTS (134) Watch Paul Mason’s report on abortion in the US in full US Presidential Election 2012 Battlegrounds 2012 Delegate counter Where do they stand? Running for president? Outside an abortion clinic in Toledo, Ohio, the protesters gather silently. They clutch crucifixes. Some kneel in the [...]

Read the full story