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A mother-of-two is recovering after being trapped in her wrecked van for almost three days and surviving on cans of soda and rainwater. Veronica McFoy lost control of her vehicle on a rural road in West Virginia last Monday. The 41-year-old’s car went careering over a 30-foot embankment and landed in an overgrown area not [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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She says she has lost two stone since being pregnant, but Una Healy insists that she is still all ‘soft’ and ‘squidgy’ following the birth of baby girl Aoife Belle two months ago. That is hard to believe though, looking at the pictures of the super svelte singer making her way through Heathrow today. Una, [...]

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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 [...]

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The survey also found that one in five women were not offered a choice of where to have their baby, despite this being a key pledge in maternity care. The Royal College of Midwives said the findings highlighted the shortage of midwives and called for 5,000 more to be appointed.   The Coalition has been accused [...]

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When Maria Concetta Cacciola drank the bottle of acid that would kill her in August last year, one can only imagine what was going through her mind. The mother of three, 31, had effectively been imprisoned in the family home in the dreary town of Rosarno, in the southern Italian region of Calabria, and probably [...]

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A lesbian couple desperate for one child have given birth to four – two sets of twins who arrived a few weeks apart. Laura Calvin and Sheri Green, from Naples, Florida, defied the odds when they both became pregnant through artificial insemination and were amazed to discover later that they were both expecting twins. The [...]

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These days, work stress, postnatal depression and anxiety are addressed with compassion. But just a few generations ago, the women who suffered from these conditions, were confined to an asylum. The compelling portraits shown here, taken by Victorian photographer Henry Hering in the mid-19th century, have a haunting quality. But apart from the women’s pensive [...]

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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  [...]

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Vancouver mother Wendy Tsao wanted to find the perfect comfort toy for her four-year-old son Dani, one that he would instantly bond with and cherish forever. But rather than run to the shop, she rifled through his stacks of drawings and found inspiration in his own imagination. Mrs Tsao took to needle and thread to [...]

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When seven-year-old Chloe Dennis’ mother went into labour, she didn’t call the midwife… she did the job herself. The youngster was awoken by mother Rachael’s screams as contractions began in the middle of the night. With nobody else around, she leapt into action and grabbed a towel to keep her newborn sister clean and warm. [...]

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Between her husband’s affair and their very public break-up, it has been a tough couple of years for Yvonne Keating. But the mother of three insists that she has to remain strong for the sake of her children. The former model joined friend Miriam Ahern yesterday at Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel for Mrs Ahern’s annual lunch [...]

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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 [...]

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The latest cover of Time magazine has caused outrage. Under the headline “Are you mom enough?”, a young woman is pictured having her left breast suckled by a boy who appears way beyond usual breastfeeding age. The woman, it turns out, is Jamie Lynne Grumet, a 26-year old mother from Los Angeles, and the boy [...]

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With the numbers of eating disorders on the rise, many believe women are feeling more pressure than ever to be thin. But a new study claims that supportive families can help combat social pressures which cause people to focus unduly on appearance and unrealistic ideals. Findings showed that levels of emotional support affected the way [...]

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Millions of mothers who have chosen to take time out of work will no longer be penalised once they are pensioners, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has announced. However, the overhaul is expected to hit wealthier workers, as the state second pension will be scrapped.   At the moment, people who do not [...]

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A mother of two has told of how she breastfeeds her two sons who are aged three and five. Jamie Lynne Grumet, 26, has appeared on the cover of Time magazine breastfeeding her three-year-old Aram as he stands on a small seat to reach her. The Los Angeles mother has spoken about how she applies [...]

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Two in five new mothers have struggled to cope with the demands of parenting during the first few weeks after birth, with a similar amount admitting getting ‘angry’ with their baby, according to a poll. A further one in five were frequently very upset at their child’s crying during the first eight weeks, a survey [...]

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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 [...]

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A popular Mormon ‘Mommy blogger’ who survived an horrific plane crash with 80 per cent burns to her body has spoken about the ordeal – and how she overcame it to give birth to her fifth child. Speaking on the Today show, Stephanie Nielson, who writes about motherhood on her blog the Nie Nie Dialogues, [...]

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It’s one thing to encourage your child to pursue their dreams, but sometimes encouragement comes at a price. A mother and daughter who live in Los Angeles told Anderson Cooper that moving to Hollywood so the young girl, Presley Cash, could become an actress has so far cost them over $160,000. Not only that but the [...]

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The mommy blogger has been around for several years now, but did you know the army of chatty, tech-savvy mothers was this large — and monied? 14% of all American mothers with at least one child in their household blog about parenting or turn to blogs for advice, according to a recent study by Scarborough [...]

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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 [...]

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After housewife Avril Keys has washed, dressed and fed her three children then dropped them off at school and nursery, she uploads a picture of what she wore to take them there. Photos of her in outfits like a brightly coloured shirt over a pair of skinny trousers and practical flat pumps — always from [...]

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At first I thought the words were aimed at someone else. ‘Selfish cow,’ said the young woman heading towards me and pushing a pram. Then I realised there was no one else around us in beautiful Roundhay Park, Leeds, where I was jogging that afternoon. She was talking to me, but surely I’d misheard. ‘You [...]

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In Ethiopia, a lack of awareness of the importance of skilled hospital deliveries, cultural beliefs and transport challenges in rural areas are causing a high number of deaths during childbirth, say officials. Only 10% of deliveries take place within health facilities, according to the Ethiopia’s latest demographic health survey results. Nevertheless, the figure is a [...]

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A billionaire philosopher has endorsed a parenting technique that allows generous time for smoking, drinking wine and having sex. Elisabeth Badinter, a 68-year-old mother of three who is the 13th richest French citizen according to Forbes, has published a book about parenting the French way. Now, her controversial methods have sparked anger from U.S. mothers. [...]

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When my partner asked if I wanted children, I would rather have thrown myself into the traffic than say yes. For me, mother-hood was what other women did,  alongside baking and taking anti-depressants. But by this time I had realised my boyfriend was The One and I didn’t want my refusal to have a child [...]

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Kyung-Sook Shin’s tale of an elderly woman who goes missing on the Seoul underground has hit a nerve, winning the Man Asian literary prize and selling more than 2m copies in South Korea. It certainly taps the universal tendency to take one’s mother for granted, as the children of the missing woman decide to distribute [...]

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Beyoncé is the most beautiful woman in the world – People magazine told me so. (I’d take it with a pinch of salt since they also saw fit to crown Bradley Cooper the “sexiest man alive” in a world where Ryan Gosling lives and smoulders.) And beautiful Beyoncé tells us that since becoming a mother, [...]

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There is a must-read article in this week’s New York Times Sunday magazine about over-zealous Alabama prosecutors bringing charges against drug-addicted mothers. It’s a troubling and complex issue. Obviously no one thinks that using drugs during pregnancy is a good idea, and it is a tragedy when a baby is stillborn, or born with drugs [...]

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Daughters are pre-programmed to find their mothers an embarrassment. Aware of this, I have tried to forestall my nine-year-old by avoiding fulsome farewells at the school gates and swapping Dolly Parton for One Direction when the car windows are down. But I had not predicted that Johnnie Boden, that bastion of middle-class wardrobes, would betray me. [...]

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By any reckoning, TV historian Lucy Worsley has done pretty well for herself. In addition to her day job as chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, the 38-year-old has written three books, made umpteen TV programmes – and has also found love, sharing a London riverside flat with her architect boyfriend.  Just about the only [...]

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An unexpected social media byproduct has risen from the “War on Women” debate between Democrats and Republicans: Mitt Romney’s team was able to build an 80,000-strong women-centered Facebook community nearly overnight. The Romney campaign created “Moms for Mitt,” a Facebook community that’s being used to display Romney’s life as father and husband and to share [...]

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With stretch marks, scars and dimples they are women who come in all shapes and sizes. But for these women that is exactly how they want it – without an airbrush in sight. A mother-of-two has launched a website to allow women to show off their post birth bodies and offer support to those struggling [...]

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I really enjoy looking after my two young children full-time but never take ‘me’ time to get dressed up for play dates or the school run. There always seems to be something more interesting or important to do. One of the mums told me she likes me, but my lack of glamour suggests that I [...]

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Nowadays on the blogosphere there exists a litany of parenting websites that would have you believe motherhood is a shiny, happy, effortless experience full of cute burps and sunny days in the park. But one mother has come clean and confessed to the everyday challenges of caring for her children, the mean-spirited thoughts she entertains [...]

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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 [...]

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Natasha Marie Harris, 30, died on February 25, 2010 in Invercargill on New Zealand’s south island. Her partner Christopher Hodgkinson claimed it was a result of drinking too much Coca-Cola. On Thursday he told the inquest Natasha had been unwell leading up to her death and had no energy, but the idea Coca-Cola caused the problem had [...]

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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, [...]

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Are the children of working mums braver than the offspring of stay-at-home mums? This question vexed a group of my friends as we sat in the twilight of a chilly Cornish evening on the last day of the Easter holiday. We were watching our youngsters play in the garden. Mine were racing around in pyjamas [...]

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‘I’ll be watching over you’: Mother, 27, who wrote mummy’s manual to help four-year-old daughter live without her loses battle with cancer By DEBORAH ARTHURS PUBLISHED: 12:35, 18 April 2012 | UPDATED: 09:38, 19 April 2012 Comments (19) Share A young mother has died of cancer after completing a ‘mummy’s manual’ to leave to her [...]

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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 [...]

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Mother’s Day: The seven ages of motherhood To mark Mother’s Day, Joanna Moorhead meets seven women who illustrate how having children really is a life-time commitment. She shares the trials, tribulations, joy and love First-time mum Sophie Mackay, 37, is mother of six-month-old Victor. She lives in east London Becoming a mother is exciting, but [...]

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What makes a London mother-of-two, albeit one fed up with the scramble for school places and frustrated at a mayoral race that seems to epitomise macho male politics, decide to jack in her job and go head-to-head against Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone? Siobhan Benita admits that, when the idea came to her that she could [...]

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Sexy mama! How one mother lost 40lbs of baby weight by learning to pole dance – and now she’s taking on the professionals By VICTORIA WELLMAN PUBLISHED: 18:16, 13 April 2012 | UPDATED: 19:13, 13 April 2012 Comments (0) Share Pole dancing is well on its way to disassociating itself from strippers and stilettos in [...]

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Her eyes are big, blue and adorned with eyeshadow and mascara. Her mouth is accentuated with pink lipstick and long, blonde curls tumble down her back. She has a wardrobe bulging with pretty, strappy dresses, and each month another £400 worth of new garments are added. Among her many new acquisitions is the attention-grabbing outfit [...]

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It looks like Bruce Springsteen has finally found a suitable replacement for Courteney Cox to go Dancing in the Dark. For he plucked his mother Adele and a young niece out from the audience to groove with him on-stage during a gig at New York’s famous Madison Square Garden arena. And it certainly looked like [...]

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A third of parents spend between 10 and 49 hours a month per child ferrying their children about by car, a survey suggests. The AA Driving School poll of more than 6,000 parents found a minority (2%) spend at least 50 hours a month. The motoring organisation said this was equivalent to many people’s annual [...]

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