Risk to women of severe bleeding after giving birth at five-year high in England 13 December 2025 at 06:31

Risk to women of severe bleeding after giving birth at five-year high in England

13 December 2025 at 06:31

Rate rises by 19% compared with 2020, prompting fresh concerns about NHS maternity care

The risk of women in England suffering severe bleeding after giving birth has risen to its highest level for five years, prompting fresh concern about NHS maternity care.

The rate at which mothers in England experience postpartum haemorrhage has increased from 27 per 1,000 births in 2020 to 32 per 1,000 this year – a rise of 19%.

The Birth Keepers: how the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world – video 11 December 2025 at 04:00

The Birth Keepers: how the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world – video

The Guardian

By:Sirin Kale · Lucy Osborne · Laurence Topham · David Levene · Sarah Verrall and Paul Lewis

11 December 2025 at 04:00

The Free Birth Society (FBS) is a multimillion-dollar business that promotes an extreme version of free birth, meaning women giving birth without medical assistance. The Guardian can now reveal that the organisation has been linked to dozens of cases of maternal harm and baby deaths around the world. After a year-long investigation, Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne explain why some women they interviewed found FBS’s views so appealing, and why medical professionals say their claims about birth are dangerous

The Birth Keepers: I choose this – episode one

A Surrogacy Firm Told Parents-to-Be Their Money Was Safe. Suddenly, It Vanished. 10 December 2025 at 15:16

A Surrogacy Firm Told Parents-to-Be Their Money Was Safe. Suddenly, It Vanished.

NYT: Science

By:Sarah Kliff

10 December 2025 at 15:16

Surro Connections held itself out as a reliable business. Now, clients have lost as much as tens of thousands of dollars meant to compensate women carrying their pregnancies.

The Birth Keepers: I choose this – episode one 10 December 2025 at 13:54

The Birth Keepers: I choose this – episode one

The Guardian

By:Presented by Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne · series producers Joshua Kelly and Elizabeth Cassin · music and sound design by Rudi Zygadlo · commissioning editors Nicole Jackson and Paul Lewis · artwork by Laurie Avon

10 December 2025 at 13:54

The Free Birth Society was selling pregnant women a simple message. They could exit the medical system and take back their power. By free birthing. But Nicole Garrison believes FBS ideology nearly cost her her life. This is episode one of a year-long investigation by Guardian journalists Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne

One in five women in England say their concerns were ignored during childbirth, survey finds 10 December 2025 at 12:55

One in five women in England say their concerns were ignored during childbirth, survey finds

The Guardian

By:Tobi Thomas

10 December 2025 at 12:55

Women say fears were dismissed and help was unavailable at crucial moments during labour

Almost one in five women feel their concerns were not taken seriously by healthcare professionals during childbirth, according to the “concerning” results of a national survey of maternity experiences.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) survey of almost 17,000 women who gave birth across England in NHS settings this year found that 15% felt they had not been given relevant advice or support when they contacted a midwife at the start of their labour, while 18% said their concerns had not been taken seriously.

‘There’s no longer a heartbeat’: the couple whose twins were stillborn – and the ‘birth keeper’ they blame 9 December 2025 at 05:00

‘There’s no longer a heartbeat’: the couple whose twins were stillborn – and the ‘birth keeper’ they blame

The Guardian

By:Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne

9 December 2025 at 05:00

Soon-to-be parents hired a woman they believed would act as a licensed midwife. But she in fact belonged to a radical society that was linked to baby deaths around the world

Ernesta Chirwa recalls the jarring moment the woman she presumed was her midwife said something unexpected. Caitlyn Collins was driving her to hospital after 6am, on 15 February 2022. “She said,” says Chirwa, who is 30 and lives in Cape Town, “Please don’t mention to the nurses that we were trying to have a home birth.”

Chirwa was in too much pain to speak – she was in active labour. But she remembers feeling surprised. “Why,” Chirwa recalls, “is she asking us not to mention that we were trying to have a home birth?”