A Week in the News - 18th July 2014

The news this week was seemingly going to be dominated by the wonderful weather that has gripped the UK this week, that was until last night when two stories hit the headlines. The incursion of Israeli troops into the Gaza strip brings the tensions in that area back to the front of the newspapers, and then the terrifying and horrendous story of a Malaysia Airlines flight being shot down in Ukraine. Both stories are concerning, and the loss of innocent lives is always horrible news. Hopefully the families of the people who died on the Malaysia Airlines flight manage to find peace soon and get a chance to obtain the information that they need.

Lets have a look at what we've seen in the papers this week.

More Babies, Mental Health and Cooling

Does having children stop you from having more children? That is what one journalist in the Telegraph is asking, after his and his wifes sex life has dramatically changed since having children. In fact they struggle to get any time alone at all, with one of his friends not even getting a chance to go to the toilet on their own, let alone do anything else! I can only imagine the lack of 'alone time' that is on offer once you have a couple of toddlers wandering around.

The National Childbirth Trust claims that one in ten of new mums suffer some kind of postnatal depression, yet mental health care for mums has huge gaps and should be looked at urgently. More than half of polled NHS trusts didn't offer specialist mental health care to mothers suffering with postnatal depression, whilst another 17% of NHS trusts didn't respond to the request by the NCT to discover whether they offered any provision. When a mother develops postnatal depression then it should be something that is given attention by specialists, this gives mums the best chance to work through their depression and help their children. With the lack of midwives and care for new mums there are so many challenges that mothers face.

Babies deprived of oxygen at birth should be placed on cooling mats which can help to reduce brain damage. According to the study placing a baby on a cooling mat is a proven way of reducing damage, for example in the study 45% of those babies placed on cooling mats suffered no brain damage whilst only 28% of those who did not manage to be placed on a cooling mat suffered no lasting damage. It seems that something which must be so simple to implement would be a very worthful introduction to hospitals across the country.

Photoshop, Teen Pregnancy and Drawings

A heartwarming story you may have seen this week was the reaction by members on Reddit to a redditors photo of their child in intensive care. Unfortunately their baby passed away after six weeks, but they had never managed to see her without the various tubes which were helping her in hospital. Reddit members managed to give the father a chance to see his daughter without tubes for the first time, and I am sure this story put a smile on the face of many people across the world.

Teen pregnancy rates have continued to fall, and as this story in the Daily Mail shows, it may be because teenagers are now spending far too long on social networks! As the average age of a first time mother continues to rise, I'm sure it isn't just facebook getting in the way but life too. The challenge of having a suitable lifestyle to raise children in is continuing to get harder, and whilst I am sure there a plenty of people who would like to have children younger sometimes it is just not possible.

Finally this week the artist who has gone back to look at his childhood drawings and has brought them up to date using photoshop. These are brilliant, and you should check them out!

See you next week with another round up of the news!

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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