She’s crying, thank God... “Congratulations, you two! Do you want to hold her, mum?” The midwife placed our first child, our little girl, in my wife’s arms. She was beautiful. The relief surged through me and I started laughing. I looked down and saw my shoes were surrounded by a puddle of fluid. The midwife…
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Are You Aware of What Can Happen During Childbirth?
December 19th 2009 was one of the best days of my life and also one of the worst. It was nearly the last day of my life. Early that morning I went into labour with our first child. It didn’t seem to take long for my little boy to arrive! All 9lbs 12oz of him!…
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Why don’t people talk about postpartum haemorrhage?
Dying in childbirth? It’s something I thought was an exclusively third world problem, that was, until it nearly happened to me. I recently gave birth to my fraternal twins and experienced a traumatic labour where I ended up needing a transfusion of 4 litres of blood. My life was in danger and if it hadn’t…
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Common Sense Research
Illustration courtesy of Ingram Pinn/Financial Times COMMON SENSE RESEARCH UK clinical research is a bureaucratic nightmare. Dozens of regulators can scupper each project and demand changes. Participants end up reading lengthy information sheets, and signing innumerable forms. Only the most dogged researchers and patients persist. For genuinely risky experiments the paperwork may be justified, but…
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