Play outside and sing together: what living in Denmark taught me about raising ‘Viking’ children

Nordic children are out in nature for hours a day – and they top rankings in both education and happiness. So here are seven parenting tips I’ve picked up along the way…

Motherhood is saying ‘I can’t do this any more’ – then doing it

What if we reminded each other that our lives are not naturally unbearable but they are made so by the powers that be?

‘At 45, I grieved the idea of motherhood. Then, by pure fluke, I was pregnant’

After miscarriages and IVF, I decided I was done. A few days later, I found out I was expecting, and the beautiful dismantling of my old life began

UK fertility treatment comparison tool featuring IVF data launched

Dashboard allows people to explore data including egg and sperm donors from 1991 onwards

Experience: I woke up from a Covid coma with newborn twins

Even when I saw the babies, I thought it was a dream and they weren’t mine

A moment that changed me: My body seemed like a death machine – until I saw those two blue lines

After cancer, chemotherapy and temporary menopause, I didn’t dare imagine having a baby. But all of a sudden my womb was designing a whole new life

‘There is joy, and there is rage’: the new generation of novelists writing about motherhood

From the shock and awe of labour to domestic isolation, a wave of recent novels captures the transformative nature of being a mother

‘I felt rage. I had traded my sanity for milk’: what happened when I breastfed despite the pain

Women continue to be told that breast is best – even when they are in agony or exhausted. As I discovered firsthand, this message puts new mothers under incredible strain

Two single friends, one radical plan: why I’m having a child with my gay best mate

Tom and I thought we’d missed out on having a family - until a drunken conversation turned serious …

‘I was grieving but couldn’t admit it’: why men cope so badly with miscarriage

When a mother has a miscarriage, men tend to snap into being strong, stoic and supportive. But a father also needs time to grieve. Here, Steve Bloomfield reflects on loss and hears how men are learning to help each other come to terms with what might have been

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Our Chemist – Health