Exclusive: New research finds ‘clinical, cruel’ language used by medics is unacceptable to many
Women who have lost a baby often dislike the language used by medical professionals and would prefer the term “pregnancy loss” over “miscarriage”, research has found.
More than six in 10 women (61%) who had lost a baby between 18 and 23 weeks of pregnancy said it was unacceptable for doctors, midwives and nurses to use the word “miscarriage”.
Continue reading...Experts call for more research into ‘off-label’ medications, and supply chain alternatives not driven by profit motive
Several crucial medicines for pregnant women are in shortage in Australia because of a “perfect storm”, experts warn, whereby the only drugs registered as safe for pregnancy are old and less profitable to pharmaceutical companies discontinuing their distribution amid manufacturing disruptions since the pandemic.
An editorial published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday called on the government to create a body responsible for registering, importing and manufacturing critical medications for use during pregnancy, independent of the need to obtain a profit.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email
Continue reading...Gillian Merron tells Lords the goal of reducing rate of preterm births to 6%, which was set in 2019, may be changed
The women’s health minister has admitted there is no chance the government will meet its target of reducing the premature birthrate to 6% in England by 2025.
Preterm birth, when a baby is born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, is the biggest cause of death among children under five in the UK. The previous government set a target in 2019 to reduce the preterm birthrate to 6% by 2025.
Continue reading...Decline in early prenatal care was accompanied by 5% rise in number of patients who received no prenatal care at all
Fewer women received early and adequate prenatal care in 2023, new data released this week by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows.
The small year-over-year decline comes amid tectonic shifts in women’s rights and access to reproductive healthcare in the US and in spite of a federal government initiative meant to improve prenatal care access. Seventeen states ban abortion at conception or soon after.
Continue reading...Prof Linda-Gail Bekker receives ovation at Aids summit after presenting trial results of ‘miracle’ drug lenacapavir
When the doctor behind the trial of a new HIV prevention drug heard the results, she could not contain her emotions. “I literally burst into tears,” said Prof Linda-Gail Bekker.
“I’m 62, I’ve lived through this epidemic … I had family members who died of HIV, as did many, many Africans – many people around the world,” she said.
Continue reading...England’s patient safety commissioner says NHS patients raising concerns are dismissed as ‘difficult women’
England’s patient safety commissioner, Henrietta Hughes, has warned that NHS patients raising concerns are too often “gaslighted”, “fobbed off” or dismissed as “difficult women”.
“It shows a very dismissive and very old fashioned, patronising attitude to patients who have identified problems and need to have their voices heard,” she said.
Continue reading...Women should be tested for gestational diabetes before 14 weeks, say academics
Pregnant women should be tested for diabetes much earlier than the current practice of doing so between 24 and 28 weeks, according to research.
Gestational diabetes, a form of the condition that only develops in pregnancy, affects thousands of women in the UK and one in seven pregnancies worldwide. It is the most common medical pregnancy complication and occurs when a hormone made by the placenta stops the body from using insulin effectively, leading to elevated blood glucose levels.
Continue reading...Research that looked at 53 million births says Black and Hispanic mothers and those in lower socioeconomic groups most at risk
Heatwaves increase rates of preterm births, which can lead to poorer health outcomes for babies and impact their long-term health, a new study found.
Black and Hispanic mothers, as well as those in lower socioeconomic groups, are particularly at risk of delivering early following heat waves.
Continue reading...Exclusive: £3.6bn has been paid out in 1,307 cases, according to information obtained under freedom of information laws
The NHS has spent £4.1bn over the last 11 years settling lawsuits involving babies who suffered brain damage when being born, amid claims that maternity units are not learning from mistakes.
It paid out just under £3.6bn in damages in 1,307 cases in which parents were left to care for a baby with cerebral palsy or other forms of brain injury, NHS figures reveal.
Continue reading...With many NHS maternity services struggling and a shortage of midwives, MPs’ plan for overhaul is ambitious
That the findings of the UK’s first inquiry into birth trauma are far from surprising does not diminish the fact that they are shocking, devastating and difficult – indeed distressing – to read. The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for birth trauma’s 80-page report should give ministers, NHS bosses and the midwives and obstetricians who deliver care serious pause for thought.
It highlights how “mistakes and failures” by maternity staff lead to stillbirths, premature births, babies being born with cerebral palsy because they were starved of oxygen at birth, and “life-changing injuries to women as the result of severe tearing”. How some mothers were mocked, shouted at, denied pain relief, not told what was going on during their labour, left alone in blood-stained sheets, with desperate bell calls for help going unanswered – all examples of “care that lacked compassion”. And how, in some cases, “these errors were covered up by hospitals who frustrated parents’ efforts to find answers”. It amounts to a shameful catalogue of negligence in the only area of NHS care where two lives – one still unborn – are on the line.
Continue reading...Inquiry hears ‘harrowing’ testimonies and finds postcode lottery for quality of maternity care
A health minister has apologised to women affected by birth trauma after a parliamentary inquiry that heard “harrowing” testimonies from more than 1,300 women about giving birth found a “postcode lottery” for maternity care.
The birth trauma inquiry, led by the Conservative MP Theo Clarke and Labour MP Rosie Duffield, will call for an overhaul of the UK’s maternity and postnatal care.
Continue reading...Republican US senator from Alabama best known for delivering widely ridiculed State of the Union speech in March
Katie Britt, the Republican US senator from Alabama best known for delivering a widely ridiculed State of the Union speech in March, marked the run-up to Mother’s Day on Sunday by introducing a bill to create a federal database to collect data on pregnant people.
The More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (Moms) act proposes to establish an online government database called “pregnancy.gov” listing resources related to pregnancy, including information about adoption agencies and pregnancy care providers, except for those that provide abortion-related services.
Continue reading...Group of 143 allege they were fitted with coils without consent or knowledge between 1966 and 1970, when some were children
Nearly 150 Greenlandic women have sued the Danish state, alleging that they were fitted with the contraceptive coil without their consent or knowledge.
A group of 143 women took legal action on Monday, demanding a collective payment of close to 43m Danish kroner (£4.9m) for what they describe as a violation of their human rights.
Continue reading...Seventy perc ent of pregnant women in state had herbicide dicamba in their urine, up from 28% in an earlier study
Pregnant women in a key US farm state are showing increasing amounts of a toxic weedkiller in their urine, a rise that comes alongside climbing use of the chemicals in agriculture, according to a study published on Friday.
The study, led by the Indiana University school of medicine, showed that 70% of pregnant women tested in Indiana between 2020 and 2022 had a herbicide called dicamba in their urine, up from 28% from a similar analysis for the period 2010-12. The earlier study included women in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.
Continue reading...Separate study finds women who are depressed in pregnancy more likely to die prematurely
The number of women who have died during pregnancy or soon after has risen sharply to its highest levels for 20 years, prompting concern from experts.
The maternal death rate increased to 13.41 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies between 2020 and 2022, according to figures published by the MBRRACE-UK investigation into maternal deaths in the UK. The figure was 8.79 in the period 2017 to 2019.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...At least 16 states will fund largely unregulated facilities that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies
In the months since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, at least 16 states have agreed to funnel more than $250m in taxpayer dollars towards anti-abortion facilities and programs that try to convince people to continue their pregnancies.
Much of that money is set to go to anti-abortion counseling centers, or crisis pregnancy centers, according to data provided by the Guttmacher Institute and Equity Forward, organizations that support abortion rights. It has been paid out throughout 2023 and will stretch into 2025.
Continue reading...Kelsey Hatcher, 32, delivered healthy daughters after 20 hours of labor, one day apart – giving each twin a separate birthday
An Alabama mother with a rare double uterus has delivered a set of twins, the hospital treating her announced on Friday.
In what doctors are calling a “one-in-a-million” pregnancy, 32-year-old Kelsey Hatcher delivered a set of twin daughters, one of whom was in each womb, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) hospital.
Continue reading...Dr Merle Berger told patient Sarah Depoian sperm had come from an anonymous donor, new lawsuit claims
A leading Boston-based fertility doctor secretly impregnated a patient with his own sperm despite telling her that it had come from an anonymous donor, new a lawsuit has claimed.
According to a civil claim filed in US district court in Boston on Wednesday, Dr Merle Berger, founder of Boston IVF and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard medical school for over three decades, secretly impregnated a patient, Sarah Depoian, who had been seeking intrauterine insemination.
Continue reading...Scientists complain after ‘sheer waste’ of human embryos discarded despite patients’ wishes
Leading scientists are calling for a change in the law to help IVF patients donate unused embryos to biomedical research after a collapse in donations over the past 15 years.
The increasing commercialisation of IVF, overstretched NHS clinics and cumbersome paperwork are blamed for a 25-fold decrease in the number of donated embryos. Scientists described some patients going to “extraordinary lengths” to ensure their embryos could be used for research rather than discarded, with many private clinics failing to routinely offer donation as an option.
Continue reading...Kelsey Carpenter was jailed while mourning her loss: ‘I don’t want others to experience what was the worst experience of my life’
California prosecutors have dismissed a murder charge against a woman who was facing life in prison after her newborn died in a home birth, resolving a case that sparked national outrage.
Kelsey Carpenter, 34, was arrested in November 2020 for child endangerment after she gave birth at home and called 911 when her baby did not survive. Although the county coroner deemed the death an “accident”, and state law prohibits the prosecution of women for pregnancy losses, the San Diego district attorney, Summer Stephan, charged her with murder “with malice”.
Continue reading...