There is a substantial literature on labour and childbirth in medical, midwifery and social scientific research. But we still don’t know much about how labouring women experience that pivotal time when…
Research we have just published shows the deaths of 48 of the 129 women in New South Wales who died during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth were due to suicide and trauma. It suggests mothers…
Intrigued by recent research that shows longer-term breastfeeding may be linked to higher IQs, I shared an article about it on my Facebook page. I was promptly accused of “breast-is-best” fascism. It appears…
The history of childbirth and midwifery has seen some dramatic changes, not only in new medical discoveries that vastly improved the safety of both mother and baby but also in social trends and the way…
The Get Britain Fertile “campaign”, funded by a pregnancy testing company and fronted by television presenter Kate Garraway, aims to get women to think about having children when they’re younger. But later…
Something called “Scientific impact paper (number 37)”, might not be expected to attract much attention. But, news sites and parenting forums alike have been rife with comments attacking the release. The…
In an evolutionary sense, memory of pain serves an important purpose. Pain indicates a threat to our safety or our life, and human survival depends on us avoiding things that are going to kill us. Historically…
Assisted reproductive technology has grown significantly in Australia as in other countries and hundreds of thousands of children have now been born because of it around the world. Most of us know people…
I was both delighted and confused when I saw a discussion of a new “trend” in pregnancy pictures on STFU, Parents, a US blog that pokes fun at people who “overshare” information about parenting through…
Considerable public controversy exists around the question of access to in-vitro fertilisation treatment (IVF) for older women. Some support unlimited, publicly-funded access for all infertile women and…
In the 2005 film Transamerica, Felicity Huffman’s character, Bree, is set to begin gender reassignment surgery when she receives a phone call from a teenage boy looking for his father, Stanley, the man…
On a weekend in mid-September 2012, a team of gynaecologists and transplant specialists at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden, performed two uterus transplants with living donors. In both cases…
A national apology to Australian mothers who experienced forced adoptions was announced by Attorney General Nicola Roxon last weekend. This apology will follow those made to the Stolen Generations, Forgotten…