A Week in the News - 17th May 2013

News has been fairly slow this week, although David Beckham did his best to get the world interested when he announced his retirement from football yesterday. There have also been interesting developments in parliament where a private members bill has been issued by the Conservative party; confirming that an in/out referendum over Europe should take place if the Conservatives win the next general election. It seems that the previous good weather was just to pull the wool over our eyes, and cold, wet weather has returned across the country this week. There have still been interesting developments in the world of pregnancy and babies though, and we'll turn our attention to them over the course of this post.

Embryos and IVF

Today we've seen fantastic news published in The Guardian that suggests a new IVF technique has been discovered which could raise live birthrate by 50%. For parents who have been through courses of IVF and unfortunately not had a baby this could bring new hope, and for parents who are yet to experience IVF it will hopefully give more people the chance to be parents. The system works by taking thousands of digital photos to monitor the embryo from creation to implantation. Consequently doctors will be able to see if the embryo is developing well, and help parents to receive an embryo that gives them the best chance of becoming parents. Whilst this technique is not yet used by the NHS there is hope that it will soon be available to all who use IVF as a way of falling pregnant.

Whilst the previous news brings hopes to thousands of couples, a story in The Daily Mail could be seen as rather disturbing. New scientific breakthroughs have enabled scientist to create cloned embryos to develop and provide stem cells for various treatments. Unfortunately the Mail believe that this could be used for nefarious reasons as the embryos could potentially survive to full term. Cloned babies is obviously something that we have seen in other animals, Dolly the sheep being a famous example, but there are clear ethical issues with the same being applied to humans. No one is suggesting that the babies would be able to grow to their full term size, so it seems that the Mail are sensationalising once again, but clearly there is an ethical debate to be had here.

Parents, Kids and Sleepy Dads

Should you trust parents? Lucy Mangan of The Guardian doesn't think that you should with a convincing argument. That being said, I'm sure we'll all agree that it depends on what you're asking the parent to do! Clearly when it comes to children they will definitely come before any moves to improve the world, but I think we can definitely trust parents with slightly less meaningful propositions. Then there is the question of children's behaviour and what is, and what isn't acceptable. In a piece for The Telegraph Louisa Peacock, not being a parent, claims that parents should begin to discipline their children more effectively. Whilst I myself can't claim to be a parent either it's an interesting debate which will spark passionate replies from both sides. Some parents will be strict, others won't, some would let their child run amok in a cafe, others would be horrified. It's pretty hard to preach though if you aren't a parent yourself, so I think I'll leave that up to Louisa.

Would you want your partner sleeping in the same ward as you after you have given birth? This is what Labour are suggesting in a new policy to involve Dads in the whole experience, whilst this is an emotional time I'm sure that new mums have also got plenty of other things to worry about after giving birth. Having the new Dad snoring next to you whilst you're recovering from such a huge event is probably not the greatest experience, and Laura Perrins agrees!

Smoking, Breastfeeding and Lots of Babies!

In a blog post earlier this week we covered the news on smoking tests for mums-to-be and it hasn't gone unnoticed by the press either as the Mail revealed how parents are angered by the proposals. Whilst I can understand the anger with these proposals, isn't it best just to stop smoking when you fall pregnant? Surely you need to look out for what is best for your baby's health, and that means stopping smoking then you should stop.

The Mail also focused on the interesting role that some friends are taking, breastfeeding the baby of their friend. Whilst in the past this would have been seen as completely acceptable and was common practice in the higher reaches of our society, today is might be seen as a taboo subject. The story in the Mail focuses on a woman who couldn't feed her baby breast milk, and turned to her friend to help. Some may feel that this is unacceptable, whilst others will be in full support. I think I'd take a neutral view on this, it's very personal.

Finally the BBC today have focused on families who have "a quiver full of children". To some this may seem bizarre as the average UK family now only has 1.7 children. In these evangelical Christian families there is no limit to the amount of children they may have, and it is all based on Psalm 127 from the Bible. It is becoming far more popular in the UK over recent years, having already been popular in the US for a number of years previously. Obviously no one can stop this, and why would they want to? As long as these families are happy and they can support themselves then we should all be happy to know that kids are growing up in a loving environment.

We'll be back next week with another look at the news, and if you see something interesting please let us know!

About the author

James Brighton

Since 2011 James has been in charge of working with and organising all our writers to put together Pregnancy.co.uk and Babies.co.uk. Anna, his girlfriend, knows he will be an encyclopaedia of knowledge if she ever falls pregnant!

Click here to read my full biography.

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