Examines how maternity staffing shortages are reshaping birth choices, including requests for C-sections driven by safety fears.
Twenty years ago, if a pregnant woman had asked for a C-section because of her fears over poor staffing levels, midwives would have thought she was over-anxious. Now, it seems like a depressingly realist position The classic way to outrage someone who’s pregnant is to touch their stomach without asking. I would never do that and it never, back in the day, happened to me – but I always thought, as outrageous as it might hypothetically be, that it also stood as a vivid analogy for the generalised…
A brief reader-letter response to Rachael Stirling’s account of eating some of her mother Diana Rigg’s ashes.
Baby talk | Ashes to ashes | A simple life | Clean sweep from the 70s | Manchester streets To add to the letters of support for Rachael Stirling ( 16 October ) after she revealed that she had eaten some of the ashes of her mother, Diana Rigg, I remember Diana being interviewed by Michael Parkinson shortly after Rachael’s birth , where she revealed that she was so besotted with her newborn that she felt an almost overwhelming desire to nibble on her. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gosling. P…