A trial has started in the UK to assess the use of a drug that normally controls diabetes to see if it could reduce the risk of obese mothers giving birth to obese babies. The drug, metformin, has been prescribed for use in gestational diabetes with little apparent side effects and so Dr Shehata ...
Monthly Archives: May 2011
Best Beginnings: Visual resource for all
There is so much information and research out there on the maternity sector it can be a real challenge making sense of it, let alone keeping up with it. Best Beginnings is a charity that aims to make more information readily accessible to healthcare professionals and parents by making short films which is a medium ...
‘The Business of Being Born’ by Ricki Lake & Abby Epstein
In 2007 two friends decided to make a film about the current state of childbirth in America. These friends just happened to be Ricki Lake, a popular television personality and Abby Epstein a film director. The result is a personal, heartfelt and sincere documentary about their own experiences of childbirth and a film which ...
Diary of a free range pregnancy: another way to monitor health
The reason pregnant women regularly see their midwives is to regularly monitor their health. In theory they are meant to be building up a relationship of trust and understanding so that the midwife learns what is 'normal' for that woman and the woman gets to know her midwife and trust her so that at the ...
NHS modernisation listening exercise
The Department of Health (DH) has instigated a consultation exercise to find out what people think about their proposed NHS reforms. An online form provided the basis for feedback and Maternal Link took the opportunity to share 7 years of experience talking to everyone from Trust managers to individual midwives around the UK, summarised under ...
Diary of a free range pregnancy: Ultrasound Scans
Why scan? What do you expect people to say when you announce you are pregnant? Congratulations? How are you feeling? Or, to my surprise over 1/3 of people's first reaction was 'have you had the scan yet?'. As their opening gambit. For many people scans are as ubiquitous to pregnancy as sex is to conception. ...