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More than 2,100 women and girls in London have sought hospital treatment for genital mutilation over the past six years, figures revealed today. The extent of the suffering in the capital was revealed for the first time after Freedom of Information requests by the Evening Standard. The figures showed that 2,167 women – almost one [...]

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This is the moment a terrified mother and her helpless baby were almost swept away by a rapidly rising tide. The young mother is shown losing her footing while pushing her child in a buggy across a causeway in the Firth of Forth. Both the woman and the pram were submerged in the water before [...]

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Visitors look at Chinese artist Song Dong’s “Waste Not” in The Curve at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. The exhibition consists of more than 10,000 objects that were collected by the artist’s mother over a period of five decades. via Waste Not: Chinese artist Song Dong exhibits thousands of items collected by his mother [...]

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An obese mum was shamed into shedding nine stone after getting so fat she got wedged in the bath. Weighty Sharon Holden, 38, tipped the scales at 22 stone 10lbs after gorging on high-calorie sandwiches, crisps and greasy takeaways. But she turned her life around after becoming stuck in her own white porcelain bath when [...]

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They emerge from the sea in bikinis no bigger than a handkerchief. Their figures are fabulous by any standards, let alone for women who have given birth a matter of weeks before. Nowadays it seems it is par for the course for celebrity mums to showcase their slender shapes in the time it takes most [...]

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Many of those questioned admitted they brag about their baby’s early development in crawling, walking or talking, or the classroom achievements of older children. Others boast about losing pregnancy pounds quickly, keeping their houses tidy or having a successful husband. But although 78 per cent of survey respondents agreed that their one-upmanship at the school [...]

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The widow of a man killed in the summer riots has given birth to a son who will never know his hero dad. Shahzad Ali, 30, died alongside his brother Abdul Musavir, 31, and friend Haroon Jahan, 21, in a heroic attempt to stop rioters breaking into a friend’s business in Birmingham on August 10. [...]

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My mother has terminal cancer and does not have long left. She has one toddler grandchild, and my husband and I were planning another baby when she was diagnosed. Should we go ahead, as I know my mother would love to know at least the sex of her unborn grandchild, or avoid the stresses of [...]

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A mother-of-two recovered from flu only to find that her accent had changed from Brummie to French. Debie Royston, 40, originally from Birmingham, suffered a series of seizures after a bad bout of the illness. It caused her to lose the ability to speak and, when her voice did come back a month later, she [...]

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Judges and lawyers are already anticipating the government’s proposed reforms to the status of separated parents by pioneering ‘shared residence orders’, according to a leading family solicitor. The orders, under which children are looked after by both parents, are becoming increasingly common, says Jonathan West, head of family and matrimonial at the firm Prolegal. Earlier [...]

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Mothers are being forced to accept badly paid, low-skilled jobs after having children because there are so few decent part-time jobs in Britain, a report warns today. The research warns women are paying a ‘shockingly high price for motherhood’ because bosses offer either well-paid full-time jobs – or poor quality part-time work. The report, from [...]

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Gary McKinnon’s mother marched on 10 Downing Street yesterday to condemn the ‘barbaric’ treatment of her son. Janis Sharp went to the Prime Minister’s official residence to mark a decade of ‘fear and torment’ since her son’s arrest for computer hacking. Flanked by backers including Trudie Styler, MP David Burrowes and civil liberties campaigner Shami [...]

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The mother of a five-year-old girl who was gunned down as she played in her uncle’s shop today described the horror of the shooting. Thusha Kamaleswaran’s heart stopped twice before she was brought back to life by doctors but she remains paralysed for life, the Old Bailey has heard. She was the innocent victim of [...]

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A 21st stone woman suffering from ‘body blindness’ like Dawn French shed almost half her body weight after a shock revelation brought her to her senses. While Georgina Crook, from Burton, Staffs., had always been overweight, she was never bullied at school, never heard a cruel comment in passing and enjoyed a loving relationship with [...]

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Mothers are being forced to accept badly paid, low-skilled jobs after having children because there are so few decent part-time jobs in Britain, a report warns today. The research warns women are paying a ‘shockingly high price for motherhood’ because bosses offer either well-paid full-time jobs – or poor quality part-time work. The report, from [...]

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Mothers are being forced to accept badly paid, low-skilled jobs after having children because there are so few decent part-time jobs in Britain, a report warns today. The research warns women are paying a ‘shockingly high price for motherhood’ because bosses offer either well-paid full-time jobs – or poor quality part-time work. The report, from [...]

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The mother of a five-year-old girl who was paralysed for life in a gang shooting sobbed yesterday as she saw CCTV footage of the moment her daughter was hit. Sharmila Kamaleswaran broke down at the sight of her daughter Thusha sprawled helpless on the floor after she was shot by a stray bullet at her [...]

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A mother whose obsessive compulsive disorder got so bad she considered committing suicide has now managed to get the condition under control, and helps others to do the same. Debbie Thomson, who has suffered from OCD since she was a child, revealed how she used to think her family would die if she touched a [...]

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Have you ever been asked to admit to the happiest moment in your life? I think it is supposed to be on your wedding day, or the moment you held your first-born child. It is the sort of question daughters are inclined to ask, and I remember shocking one of mine by suggesting that my [...]

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The bond between sisters Luan Moreton, Kim Jones and Jemma Dennis could not be any stronger. Losing their 32-year-old mother, Rita, to breast cancer in 1986, when they were 12, seven and four, they share an exceptional closeness. What they didn’t know until five years ago, however, is that they share something else too; something [...]

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A mother who claims she does not remember abandoning her two young sons at a gas station said her son later told her ‘Mommy you lost me’. Sarah Hatfield disappeared for 12 hours after leaving her children aged two and four in her van in Colorado along with her car keys, purse and mobile on [...]

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It was a day like any other. I got back from work, called out my wife’s name, Kim, and waited for my little boy, Jobe, then two, to come running up to me as usual. Nothing happened; the house was silent. The washing was still on the line, so I assumed they’d popped out. Day turned [...]

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Being annoyed by Gwyneth Paltrow is the very definition of pointlessness – like railing against the existence of death, or buying anti-cellulite cream. Yet at times it’s impossible to resist. The multi-millionaire film star usually doles out impractical lifestyle advice through her website, Goop. But this week she gave an interview to the fashion magazine [...]

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Singles who long for children without the obligation of romantic involvement can now search for their perfect ‘co-parenting’ match online, thanks to a new website. Launched last week, Modamily calls itself: ‘The first online community to facilitate introductions between responsible, like-minded adults committed to co-parenting a child.’ So far the New-York based service that caters [...]

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Even now, I can still remember the exact spot in my bedroom where my mother was standing as she announced she was divorcing my father. My parents had been due to emigrate to Australia for a ‘fresh start’ after years of affairs, separations and recriminations. I was ten so I still believed in ‘happily-ever-afters’. I [...]

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This is the touching moment a young daughter tenderly cuts her cancer-stricken mother’s hair to prepare her for chemotherapy. In the intimate video Lola Etchells, 6, is also shown shaving the head of her mother Sarah, 44, who was diagnosed with breast cancer last September. Intimate: Lola carefully clips her mother Sarah’s hair The footage [...]

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A mother eyed me curiously at my sons’ school fair, where I was manning the kitchen, baking baguettes and heating up soup. ‘You’re a real Beta Male, aren’t you?’ she said. For a moment, I thought I’d misheard her. ‘You mean a Better Male?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘A Beta Male, as in, not [...]

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Miss Paltrow, who won an Oscar for her role in Shakespeare in Love, said she cooks for her husband, Coldplay star Chris Martin, and bathes their children, Apple, 7, and Moses, 5. She rises at 7am and works on her website and cookery books while her children are at school, before preparing dinner for her [...]

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Squeezed into a four-bedroom council house in Guernsey lives a woman branded the UK’s most prolific single mother. Joanne Watson, 40, has 14 children, ranging in age from three to 22 and survives largely on state benefits after the breakdown of her marriage in 2010. Once celebrated in endless articles in the press for her [...]

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These three sisters look a picture of health – but they have had to take drastic action to stay that way. Luan Moreton, Kim Jones and Jemma Dennis lost their mother to breast cancer when she was only 32, and tests revealed that they had inherited the same faulty gene. They decided to have preventive [...]

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A girl of five whose pregnant mother was mugged by two teenage thugs told a judge in a handwritten note that she  saw one of them ‘hit the baby in her tummy’. The girl added that she hoped that Nathaniel Moffett and Thaberi Francis ‘don’t hurt any more people’. The pair assaulted the youngster’s mother [...]

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What makes an entrepreneur? BBC Arabic’s Marwa Amer and Tom Santorelli spoke to Yasmine El-Mehairy about setting up an Egyptian website designed specifically for mothers. When Yasmine El-Mehairy looked online for pregnancy advice for her sister-in-law in 2010, she was bombarded with conflicting opinions and what she thought were old wives’ tales. She identified a [...]

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Even if the arch feminist Germaine Greer did once dismiss Cherie Blair as a mere “concubine”, women’s rights have always been close to the heart of the former prime minister’s wife. Now, however, Mrs Blair, who runs a foundation for women, says it is a “myth” that members of her sex can ever have it [...]

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Parents who set up their own businesses would be in line for a £900-a-year tax break under plans for this year’s Budget being considered by George Osborne. The Chancellor is looking at extending childcare vouchers, which help 700,000 working parents save on the cost of a childminder or nursery, to self-employed mothers and fathers. The [...]

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The children have left home, the house is too big, the nesting years are over. What happens next? Do you set off together and roam the world, buy into a retirement development, or help the young get a foot on the ladder? The older generation own most of the property equity in this country, giving [...]

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A woman jumped to her death from a cliff top because she feared she was developing the dementia she had seen take a grip of her late mother. Unable to face becoming a burden on her family, Judith Iles, 60, wrote a suicide note to her husband and son which read: ‘So sorry – I’m [...]

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Peering at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test, Debbie Hughes reached for her reading glasses to check that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Fast approaching her 53rd birthday, she thought she was too old to conceive naturally and, besides, she was on the Pill. It was impossible, she thought, her stomach ‘lurching with [...]

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Experts say that a mum who nurtures and cares for her kids can set them up in good health right, even if they’ve grown up in grinding poverty. Research has already proven that kids who grow up in poor areas are more likely to suffer from chronic illness in adulthood, but US researchers were puzzled [...]

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As a toddler, my son Henry used to sleep in a nightie, after I gave up on trying to wrestle him into pyjamas. Later, he took to calling himself Stephanie, Jean, Olive or, most frequently, Miss Argentina. His favourite game was wearing his elder sisters’ sequin party dresses while running his imaginary boutique ‘Slinx’ or [...]

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Ms Franklin’s 37-year old son Simon Ellis was a passenger in a car that crashed into a wall in Great Wenham, near Ipswich, on June 26, 1992, when he was just 18. He lost the use of his arms and legs, suffered brain damage and two skull fractures. Doctors said he would never talk again. [...]

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A mother wanted on counterfeiting charges has been accused of leaving her five-year-old son alone in a hotel room so she could gamble. Xiao Xu Wu was charged on Wednesday with risk of injury to a minor after her son called 911 and said he was left alone at a Mohegan Sun Casino in New [...]

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What is the most provocative headline you can think of? The Wall Street Journal came close in January last year when it ran a book extract under the banner: “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” Oh dear God. The only women who should call themselves mother superior are nuns. The extract was by Amy Chua, a [...]

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I’ve spotted them at the school gates, looking dazed and slightly dishevelled as they hand over packed lunches and field trip slips. Traces of glue stick to their fingers from a late night spent building a pyramid out of cereal packets for a class project. The stay-at-home dads used to be a rare sight but [...]

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The number of househusbands has tripled over the past 15 years, new figures have revealed. Last year, 62,000 men were classed as ‘economically inactive’ while their partners go out to work, compared to just 21,000 in 1996. This follows on from a recent survey which also found that there are 1.4million men across the UK [...]

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The Prime Minister was forced to deny pranging his children’s nanny Gita Lama’s car after offering to reverse park it for her at Downing Street on Tuesday. Mr Cameron had just returned from a morning run with his trainer, Matt Roberts, when he noticed Mrs Lama, 32, struggle to squeeze her newly bought Honda Jazz [...]

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Every so often a new parenting book triggers the sort of conflicting passions most recently associated with the Arab Spring. Pamela Druckerman’s French Children Don’t Throw Food, is just such an incendiary work. We mothers are a notoriously touchy lot at the best of times, so when another woman dares to suggest there might be [...]

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With a size six figure and 36DD chest, this petite blonde thought she would have no trouble getting into a nightclub. But 28-year-old Lisa Woodman has been banned from every hotspot in her home town – after being told she is too old to wear skimpy outfits. The furious mother-of-four was barred from three venues [...]

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Bread-winning wives who earn more than their stay-at-home husbands are crippled by guilt about ‘abandoning’ their children, research reveals today. About 1.4million families in Britain rely on a high-earning woman whose husband or boyfriend is raising their children full-time, or works part-time. In this dramatic reversal of the traditional family set-up, four in ten mothers [...]

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Whether it’s Victoria Beckham (back to a skinny size 6 just weeks after giving birth to baby Harper), model Miranda Kerr (rarely seen out of tiny leather shorts, with baby on hip) or even presenter Myleene Klass (back in a teeny bikini), it seems not a week goes by without a celebrity pinging back into [...]

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When an elegant French mother confided her embarrassment about the time it had taken to get her son to sleep through the night, Pamela Druckerman was all ears. With a six-month-old who woke several times in the small hours, she assumed it would be comforting to share the nightmare. Until, that is, she found out [...]

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