It has been a good week for care and compassion in Australia.

How many surrogate babies are too many?

The term “doula” may be unfamiliar to many people but the role itself is an ancient one. Traditionally, a doula would “provide emotional, physical and information support to women throughout their pregnancy, birth and the early postpartum.” Modern doulas are professionally trained to equip them for this work.

An Australian surrogacy lobby group has seized on statistics released by the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs to renew calls to legalise commercial surrogacy in Australia.

One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage.

By Rachael Wong 

The Courier Mail has published a piece about women who identify as men in Queensland and the “discrimination” they face when it comes to language, policies and procedures while pregnant, giving birth or raising children.

By Rachael Wong

Republican Senator Ted Cruz has been criticised for his online comments about pregnancy.

By Rachael Wong

Tri-colour pregnancy warnings on alcoholic beverages will now be mandatory in Australia after the Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation accepted new standards proposed by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand. 

By Tamara El-Rahi

This week, I came across an article titled “No More Isolation: Why More Women are Sharing Pregnancy News During the First Trimester”. I am so glad this is happening! I have fallen pregnant three times, the second of which ended in miscarriage - but all three times we told family and friends as soon as we knew. And having experienced both these happy and painful outcomes of pregnancy, we still wouldn’t do it any other way.

By Anna Walsh

After a horror car crash that killed a young woman heavily pregnant with twins last year in NSW,[i] an attempt was made to re-enliven debate on ‘Zoe’s Law’, a bill which sought to recognise the unborn child as a victim of crime when killed through an assault on the pregnant woman.[ii] The bill made an exception for ‘anything done in the course of a medical procedure’, and ‘anything done by or with the consent of the mother of the child in utero.’[iii] Whilst the first exception refers to abortion, the ambit of the second exception is unclear and raises an interesting issue about criminalising behaviour of pregnant women known to cause damage to the child in utero.