Stories from the community Maternal and child healthVaccine informationCSO diaries Separating vaccine fact from fiction in rural Madagascar

Molly O’Brien responds to an article by Natalie Morris about her five-day labour, while an NHS doctor shares her personal experience of feeling ‘othered’

A chorus of influencers on social media in the MAHA and “trad wife” communities emphasize the downsides of hormonal birth control. Research shows few of them have medical expertise. Jim Watson/AFP

Infertility affects about 48 million couples worldwide and, in a substantial share of cases, the specific cause is never identified. In this context, the study of the relationship between reproductive health and the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies (the microbiome) and reproduction has emerged only recently, and with a strong bias. Attention has focused especially…

The study, published in Frontiers in Environmental Health, tracked exposure to fine particulate matter — PM2.5 — from wildfires across the United States between 2003 and 2019. Researchers found that although emissions from transport and industry have fallen, smoke from increasingly frequent and intense wildfires is offsetting some of those public health gains

For Erin Holland the road to pregnancy spanned years, with 20 rounds of IVF to get here and there’s a big part of her that still doesn’t really believe it’s actually happening.