This website is intended for healthcare professionals
This website is intended for healthcare professionals
Freelance writer; Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Science
Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is a relatively recent development, based on the detection of DNA fragments in maternal serum Up to 20% of these fragments are fetal DNA shed from the placenta,...
According to Germaine Greer (1985: 6), ‘from conception, pregnancy is regarded as an abnormal state… an illness, requiring submission to the wisdom of health professionals and constant monitoring, as...
Dobelli (2013) cites an experiment in which a supermarket displayed 24 flavours of jelly, which customers could taste and then buy at a discount; the next day, the experiment was repeated with six...
Last year, at the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, feminist icon Germaine Greer scolded gay parents Sir Elton John and David Furnish for naming Furnish as the mother of their two sons on the...
Despite all the evidence that breastfeeding is best for babies, many people still hold negative opinions about it For example, Kathryn Blundell—then deputy editor of parenting magazine Mother &...
According to Skouteris (2012: 664), citing a survey of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, ‘body image concerns are largely ignored by physicians working with pregnant women’...
In 2010, marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe finished a 10 km charity run while 7 months pregnant In 2011, Amber Miller completed the Chicago Marathon in 6 hours 25 minutes, and 7 hours later...
In September 2015, it was reported that researchers at London's Francis Crick Institute (2015) had sought permission from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to use so-called ‘gene...
‘We can't change the past but this vaccine will change people's futures’ These were the words of Kelly Mellor, whose daughter contracted meningococcal disease when she was 11 months old, quoted in a...
In May 1847, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818–1865) showed by experiment that handwashing could prevent infections (Noakes et al, 2008) He instigated a hand-washing regime at the maternity clinic of the...
In May 2015 a 65-year-old German single mother of 13, Annegret Raunigk, gave birth to quads One might have thought that this qualified Ms Raunigk as the world's oldest mother, but a BBC News report...
The World Health Organization recommends that the ideal rate for caesarean sections should be between 10 and 15% However, caesarean sections have become increasingly common in both developed and...
In early February 2015, MPs voted to amend the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act to permit mitochondrial donation (Gallagher, 2015) On 24 February, the House of Lords approved the amendment,...
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