Low-risk pregnant women urged to avoid hospital births
NHS guidance from National Institute for Health and Care Excellence suggests 45% of births ‘unsuitable’ for labour wards
An Aviary of Small Birds review – a beautiful, painful, pitch-perfect debut
The stillbirth of Karen McCarthy Woolf’s son is the powerful emotional core of this deft, unsentimental collection, writes Kate Kellaway
Do men really need to feel the pain of childbirth to empathise with women?
Emma Beddington: The pursuit of empathy is all very well, but delivering electric shocks doesn’t necessarily help fathers understand what labour is like
Does childbirth improve athletic ability?
David Cox: It was long thought that child-bearing signalled the beginning of the end for female athletes, , but intriguing evidence suggests there are numerous physiological benefits
My wife had a stroke after giving birth
When Mia Sarjeant had brain surgery the day after her daughter Esther was born, it was left to her husband Adam to pick up the pieces
Don’t judge Robbie Williams for live-tweeting his little angel’s birth
Ally Fogg: There’s an awful lot of hanging around involved in childbirth, and Ayda Field didn’t seem to mind, so what’s the problem?
By removing photos of childbirth, Facebook is censoring powerful female images
Milli Hill: Birth is a fundamental feminist issue right now - women’s bodies should not be sanitised. Facebook should let us see it as it is
Womb transplant birth worth the risk, says mother
First woman to give birth from transplanted uterus says pregnancy option was perfect idea despite lack of guarantees
Caesarean section rates in South Africa ‘recklessly high’, warn experts
Up to 90% of pregnant private hospital patients opt for C-section in parts of Cape Town, far exceeding WHO limit of 15%
Poorer women experience worse care during pregnancy, says study
Women less likely to have seen doctors and have higher chance of hospital admissions and unplanned caesarean deliveries