Family News Home

Family Holidays A woman has given birth inside a toilet at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, her husband said this morning.
Kathy Patsidis’s baby was born at 4pm yesterday, after she was repeatedly told there were not enough staff at the hospital, her husband Nick Patsidis said on radio 2UE this morning.
The incident comes less than [...]

It’s Sunday afternoon. All weekend we have asked Max whether he’s done his homework. “Have you done your homework?” “Are you absolutely sure it’s all finished?” Max is adamant: it’s done. “Mum! Chill! I did it during the week.”I should, of course, demand to see said homework: but somehow, I never quite do. It’s a [...]

Teenagers from poorer families are turning their backs on a university education because of fears they will be saddled with thousands of pounds of debt, new research shows. The study on the impact of tuition fees reveals today that nearly two-thirds of pupils who decided not to seek higher education cited anxieties about money.The number [...]

I was quoted in response to the prime minister’s acknowledgment that “an extra 1,000 midwives were needed”. But this number needs putting into a wider context. Ambitious guarantees were made last April in the government’s new strategy, Maternity Matters, which aims for England to have a first-class maternity service by the end of 2009. However, [...]

Researchers estimate that around one in 10 pregnant women develop some degree of depression. Much has been done to raise awareness of postnatal depression, but studies show that a woman is more likely to be depressed while 32 weeks pregnant than she is eight weeks after the baby is born. But it is only now [...]

2. Get practical helpIf you are to babymoon, someone else has to prepare meals, shop, clean and do the laundry. If no partner, friends or family are willing, try a post-natal doula - a sort of experienced “rent a mum” - who will do light household tasks, and advise on breastfeeding and other new-baby issues. [...]

“The health system is in disarray owing to the lack of an institutional framework, intermittent electricity, unsafe water, and frequent violations of medical neutrality. The ministry of health and local health authorities are mostly unable to meet these huge challenges, while the activities of UN agencies and non-governmental organisations are severely limited.”The report, by the [...]