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9 results
  • Article
  • Article

Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta

| Joanna Wolfarth

A human baby needs milk to survive – and this holds true even before it’s born. Joanna Wolfarth explores “womb milk”, as well as ancient and modern ideas about the placenta.

  • Article
  • Article

Sigrid Rausing’s prescription for writing

| Jennifer Trent Staves

The Wellcome Book Prize shortlisted author of ‘Stay With Me’ answers five questions on health, inspiration and storytelling.

  • Article
  • Article

When you don’t belong, you drink

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

In the third part of her exploration of belonging, Tanya Perdikou unpicks the addictions that have shaped her past and uncovers the connections that make recovery possible.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

A portrait of me with my mother

| Camilla Greenwell

A series of portraits with stand-in mothers helped Camilla Greenwell to process her grief, and then to question whether our photograph albums are ever really honest.

  • Article
  • Article

Birth, babies and boxes of memories

| Erin BeestonNaomi Williams

With memories of her baby in neonatal intensive care still fresh, Erin Beeston decides to unearth the poignant objects her family kept following births, going back as far as Victorian times.

  • Article
  • Article

How we bury our children

| Wendy PrattThomas S G Farnetti

Following her baby daughter’s funeral, Wendy Pratt found that visiting the grave gave her a way to carry out physical acts of caring for her child. Here she considers how parents’ nurturing instincts live on after a child’s death.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Inside the mind of George Vasey, co-curator of Misbehaving Bodies

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

Discover how curator George Vasey honoured the approaches of Jo Spence and Oreet Ashery, who mischievously subvert clichés around illness and death.

  • Article
  • Article

Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze

| Rose RuaneMary Bishop

Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.

  • Article
  • Article

Confusion, guilt, and the battle to breastfeed

| Joanna WolfarthRosie Barnes

Most new mums are told that breast is best. But breastfeeding doesn’t always come as easily or naturally as you might imagine.