‘Raising a child without a village is doable – but lonely’: readers on the highs and lows of having a lockdown baby

Bringing a baby into the world can be tough at the best of times, and the pandemic has been far from that. Readers reflect on the pain and joy of new parenthood

A maddening grief: my year of miscarriages and how I got through it

Navigating an uncharted landscape, I found solace in an unlikely place

Monzo bank to offer employees paid leave after pregnancy loss

Either partner can take up to 10 days’ leave after miscarriage, stillbirth or abortion in UK digital bank’s policy

‘Stop the Breast Pest’: MP’s ‘horror’ at being photographed while breastfeeding

Stella Creasy launches campaign to change law after a boy took pictures of her feeding her baby on a train

The city my grandfather used to call home no longer exists – except in our minds

After his death, I wanted to know more about his life, and the city that made him and very nearly killed him, says Michael Segalov

Home Office sued by asylum seeker over baby’s death

Woman claims asylum housing staff ignored pleas for help when she was in pain while 35 weeks pregnant

Laura Dockrill on parenting, paranoia and postpartum psychosis: ‘I thought I’d been hijacked by a devil’

A month after the birth of her son, the writer and illustrator was on suicide watch in a psychiatric ward, experiencing severe delusions. Now her podcast is raising awareness of a condition that affects one in a thousand new mothers

Experience: I carried a twin in each of my wombs

The medical staff had never seen anything like it. They told us the chances were one in 50 million

The social biome: how to build nourishing friendships – and banish loneliness

All your daily interactions with others, big and small, make up your social biome, and the pandemic has severely damaged most of ours. Here’s how to reinvigorate it

‘A letter tells someone they still matter’: the sudden, surprising return of the pen pal

In the pandemic, many have rediscovered the sheer pleasure of writing to strangers, with new schemes spreading hope and connection around the world

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Our Chemist – Health