Pregnancy
As Australians get bigger, more pregnant women are technically obese
The only part of Victoria where maternal obesity has not risen is a tiny spot in Melbourne’s inner-east, which experts say shows the significance of wealth and access to services.
- by Wendy Tuohy
Latest
Editorial
Editorial
Response to birth trauma inquiry must recognise changing face of motherhood
The NSW parliamentary inquiry risks becoming a case of midwives versus doctors. It must, instead, centre on modern mothers.
- The Herald's View
Exclusive
Healthcare
Too old to push: Record rate of NSW women having caesarean births
Rates are rapidly increasing in private and public hospital across NSW, as older mothers opt to have fewer children.
- by Mary Ward
Exclusive
IVF
Bid to change ‘archaic’ IVF rules to include solo and same-sex parents
The definition of infertility to receive Medicare-funded fertility treatment requires couples to try to conceive through unprotected sex for one year.
- by Kate Aubusson
Updated
Hospitals
Painful contraction for private maternity hospitals
One in four women gives birth in private hospitals. The collapse of private obstetrics will have huge flow-on effects for the public system.
- by Kate Aubusson
‘Every serving of grief is a full serve’: The challenge of losing a twin in utero
It’s a loss that triggers contradictory emotions: how to square the happiness that one survived with an enduring sadness that the other didn’t?
- by Shelley Eves
Opinion
Opinion
It was in the final moments of my eighth pregnancy when I began to shiver uncontrollably
I remember the abject fear of the operating theatre. Lying there, so close to having my miracle baby, I felt like I was floating in a bubble of terror.
- by Isabelle Oderberg
Opinion
Opinion
‘This is your fault’: The doctor’s words that left me with PTSD
It’s only now – 24 years later – that I am able to discuss it, and I still cry. Birth trauma is still vastly overlooked, but its impacts can last a lifetime.
- by Beth Knights
The common but little-known virus causing disability in hundreds of babies
Every year, about 400 babies are born with physical and intellectual disabilities caused by a virus many pregnant women don’t know about.
- by Henrietta Cook
Opinion
Parenting
It’s not selfish not to want kids. It’s selfish to have them
I’ve had three babies and none were born of an act of altruism. Every time I had a child I did so for me.
- by Kerri Sackville
IVF at a fraction of the cost: Perth clinic disrupts infertility market
The Baruahs know how torturous infertility treatment can be, having spent seven years enduring it. But when they finally held their son, “everything changed.”
- by Claire Ottaviano