In honour of May, 4, the day that recognizes how important midwives are worldwide, it is even more important to recognize what happens in countries without midwives or access to reliable healthcare. Tanzania, for example, has a dangerously low number of women’s health care professionals and midwives. Because of this, it is one of the ...
Women these days are taking longer to give birth than in the 1960s. According to recent research, one of the main reasons is greater levels of medical intervention, specifically the use of epidural anaesthesia. The research is based on the childbirth experiences of women in the United States. I can remember watching an episode of ...
In Britain, medical ethics experts are pushing for an inquiry into the ethics of transgendered births and its effects on the child. Apparently, researchers are concerned that if a transgendered female-to-male gives birth, the rights of the parent to reproduce comes at the expense of the child’s interests. This call to “defend” the child’s rights ...
For superstars like Beyoncé, hospitals are transformed into five-star hotels. Blue Ivy Carter, born Saturday night at the Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, came into the world in style. Beyoncé and Jay-Z reportedly rented an entire floor of the Lenox Hospital, took over the security and forced staff to turn in their ...
How late is too late? When it comes to inducing labour this question is far from easy. Different countries have different rules in health services and women regularly come under pressure to fit in with them. But just as not every woman will get morning sickness or an aversion to coffee not every woman bakes ...
Dear Madame X, Any moment now my girlfriend is going to give birth to our first child. We’ve taken the classes and I’ll be there to hold her hand, support her and get ice chips, but I’m just not interested in heading down and checking out the business end of things. I’m ok with doctors ...
Soon Bella Swan, of Twilight fame, will give birth to her vampire spawn. Or rather, after enduring an incredibly painful and life-threatening pregnancy, the baby will be literally ripped from her womb. It makes a girl wonder, why would anyone want to have sex with a vampire anyway? The Cracked team takes a stab (through ...
Controversy has erupted over women’s bodies in Britain this week. Pregnant women’s bodies, in particular. In other words, a very personal time in a woman’s life, yet one that causes all manner of people to come out of the woodwork with advice, opinions and unsolicited touching of the bump. A new report by the National ...
Childbirth. Despite having what a shop assistant once described as “splendid childbearing hips,” I don’t know much about it. Even with my lack of maternal knowledge, there were a few things I took as fact. –It takes about nine months to grow a baby. –There is a lot of kicking from within the bump. –There’s ...
If you have a problem with MTV’s 16 and Pregnant, it might be even harder to accept the reverse: 61 and pregnant. Although she’s old enough to be a granny, an unnamed 61-year-old Brazilian woman is due with her first child this November. After having “undergone a very thorough medical clearance,” her and her 38-year-old ...
Dear Madame X, I have just started seeing this girl. She seems great, but she recently told me she...
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved arrived in my hands via a public library, when I was a broke teenager with...
My attention was drawn this week to an article about the reaction at a Canadian university to proposals to...
Airport security. Bloody nuisance. Also a conspiracy designed to subjugate women. Allow me to elaborate. Despite flying quite a...
The Cannes film festival has kicked off this week with controversy over the lack of films made by women...
Dear Madame X, I seem to be only attracted to men who are macho assholes. I like them at...
When A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962, the term sexualized violence wasn’t in use. The distinction between sexualized...
Skincare. Not so very long ago, a man would have been mocked mercilessly for using just the word, never...
