Chickenpox is a mild and common childhood illness. However, pregnant women, newborn babies and people with a weakened immune system may also be at risk. Chickenpox is highly contagious to people who have never had chickenpox before, or who have not been vaccinated. You can also...
Perinatal depression and anxiety is costing Australia $877 million annually according to a PwC (PriceWaterhouseCooper) analysis prepared for Gidget Foundation Australia and the Perinatal Mental Health Consortium. This is supported by the findings of the recent National Working Families survey undertaken by Parents at Work &...
Amanda Gordon discusses how Postnatal Depression and Anxiety can come to any new mother...
The village is most welcome to help raise her child, writes Maxine Clarke, but through practical gestures, rather than unconstructive heckling. For a few short months, I was completely content with the new-found public interest in my condition. Even a few pats on the tummy from...
Professor Ken Beagley, the Queensland immunologist who helped bring us the chlamydia vaccine for koalas has had another breakthrough, this time providing the first evidence of chlamydia in the testes of men with infertility. Around 30 to 40% of men who are infertile don’t know why....
Without some of the structures of days gone by, today’s mums can feel all at sea, writes Angela Rossmanith. “The bottom line is that women want someone to listen to their needs and concerns and help them address these needs. When a midwife who knows the...
Mandy Collins finds the judgements of other women in relation to birth and breastfeeding to be difficult to accept. I clearly remember the morning I decided to stop breastfeeding my daughter. I lay in my hospital bed, tears running down my face, terrified to tell the...
Unlike other tissue donations, if a woman in Australia needs an egg, or wants to donate one, she is largely left to work it out herself through advertising or searching for an ethnically compatible donor through other means. Accessing an egg donor, or becoming one,...
Margaret Langdon explores stories of families with children conceived through assisted reproductive technologies and the donations of others. About one in six Australians are affected by fertility problems. The techniques available to help these people seeking parenthood are known as assisted reproductive technologies (ART). These technologies involve...
Cathy Watson enters the uncertain world of premature babies and their parents. Barbara A* and her partner left the champagne unopened when their daughter Freya was born at 27 weeks’ gestation. Just as their daughter entered a new world, so too did they – as parents...
