WALES has the highest rates of women who smoke during their pregnancy in the UK, shocking figures reveal today. Despite the social taboo, the figures from anti-smoking charity ASH Wales show one-in-five women continue to smoke throughout pregnancy. Midwives said many young women are smoking while pregnant because they believe they will have smaller “doll-like” babies. Helen Rogers, the Royal College of Midwives’ board secretary for Wales, ... Jump to full article >>

I’m lying in hospital, shaking with fear. There are no familiar faces, only doctors and midwives hovering above me, their mouths moving silently. The contractions keep coming, and I’m horribly confused. How can I be in labour when I would never have allowed myself to get pregnant? Welcome to my subconscious, which regularly reminds me of my terror of childbirth. The nightmares started in my teens, when I decided I could never cope wi ... Jump to full article >>

Middle-class women who smoke in early pregnancy do almost no harm to their unborn baby, researchers claimed last night. Only women from poorer backgrounds damage their babies by smoking, because they tend to combine it with alcohol and a poor diet. The study by the London School of Economics also casts doubt on the traditional view that smoking during early pregnancy does the most harm to the baby. If women stop smoking by the fifth month the im ... Jump to full article >>

Older moms are more likely to have a child with autism than women who give birth at a younger age, new research shows. Researchers from University of California, Davis, looked at records for the nearly 5 million births in California between 1990 and 1999, a decade in which autism incidence increased 600 percent statewide. A woman’s risk of having a child diagnosed with autism rose by 18 percent for each five-year increment in her age, accordin ... Jump to full article >>

An Australian-led study has confirmed a lack of serotonin was a common factor with babies who die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The breakthrough offers a “much clearer direction” in the search for a cure for the mysterious syndrome, which still claims one in 2,000 apparently healthy children. Researcher Dr Jhodie Duncan, of the Melbourne-based Florey Neuroscience Institutes, studied cases of infant deaths from confirmed S ... Jump to full article >>

Babies of women who smoked during pregnancy have blood pressure problems at birth that persisted through the first year of life, a new study finds. “What is of concern is that the problems are present at birth and get worse over time,” said Gary Cohen, a senior research scientist in the department of women and child health at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and lead author of a report in the Jan. 25 online edition of Hypertension. “ ... Jump to full article >>

The province announced new funding today to help smokers in certain target groups kick the habit. The funding, which comes during National Non-Smoking Week (Jan. 18-24), is directed at expectant and new mothers as well as people living in poverty, participating in addictions treatment or struggling with mental illness. Over the next two years, the government will spend $280,000 to assist programs operated by Healthy Child Manitoba, the Addiction ... Jump to full article >>

Whether the public is on board or not with the Michigan smoking ban passed by the state Legislature in December, it’s going to be illegal to light up in bars and restaurants beginning in May. Local resident Lynda Collins, owner of Thompson’s Pizzeria, decided that she would go ahead and start enforcing the policy now so her customers have time to ease into the fresh new reality. “We were going to do this before the state mandat ... Jump to full article >>

When my husband and I first arrived in Madrid, we enjoyed every aspect of the Spanish capital’s hectic nocturnal lifestyle. Everything was so exciting and new, life seemed so simple and great. Eating out soon turned into a habit; we enjoyed the tapas bars, our local and the more central cervecerias. We drank coffees in bars during afternoon strolls in the parks. Whenever there was a language hiccup or a misunderstanding, we would simply sh ... Jump to full article >>

On July 10, 2007, President George W. Bush, in a speech in a hotel in Cleveland, said: “I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” Although this is one of the silliest statements ever made about health care, it may reflect the views of many people who never think about problems of obtaining health care because they can afford it no matter what it costs. A pregnant woman cannot ... Jump to full article >>