The women left with devastating injuries after childbirth
Millions are left with life-changing injuries after giving birth — yet are too ashamed to talk about it. Now, as doctors and midwives finally act, a searing exposé of childbirth’s shameful secret
Heart Disease: the menace that kills more women than breast cancer, yet is critically under-diagnosed
Alexandra Pringle, editor-in-chief at Bloomsbury Publishing had a near fatal heart attack after suffering chest pain for years. Yet doctor after doctor dismissed her concerns.
Reece Kempley
A silly prank on holiday left Reece Kempley tetraplegic: his mum Rachel is raising the money to pay for Lokomat – a robotic weight bearing therapy which could help restore some movement.
Britain’s most inspiring health worker
Professor Hindmarsh, consultant in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes at University College London
Top tips for throwing a royal wedding street party
As an American citizen, Meghan Markle may not be aware that, up and down the land, the British public is preparing to celebrate her wedding to Prince Harry on May 19 in its own special way. Or that (whisper it) not all of us are that interested in the actual event, but see it as a great excuse to close the road, get the bunting out and do what we do best: sit about on plastic chairs, feasting on Victoria sponge and warm prosecco while discussing the state of the nation, possibly under a light drizzle, and wearing a Union Jack apron.
A Different Beat
The volunteer patrol groups trying to keep communities safe as police numbers fall.
Later Living
Swanky apartments for discerning octogenarians. Just don’t call them retirement homes..
A Good Death
“The family is often doing everything to avoid the conversation going to ‘the worst place’ in case it gets emotionally horrible. But actually it becomes a lot calmer once you start asking: If she is so sick, she can’t be saved what sort of things should we all be doing now so we don’t regret anything? I don’t want them to wish in two week’s time, when they’re suffering agonising grief, that they’d had that conversation.” Palliative care consultant, Dr Kathryn Mannix.
How Felix White, who died aged six from neuroblastoma has helped scientists develop successive versions of ALK inhibitors which turn off the cancer-causing ALK gene
Felix’s parents, Matt and Colleen allowed scientists to draw his blood after he died. His cancer cells were subsequently used in the lab to develop new drugs which are now being put forward as frontline treatment for children with Felix’s disease.
‘I won’t break sweat at sealing a $10 million deal but small things keep me awake..’
The self-made businessman and entrepreneur Lawrence Wosskow on the crippling anxiety that dogged his personal and professional life
“I’m still me, I’m still here..”
The world champion marathon runner Ron Hill, reflects on his dementia diagnosis
A drug, Spinraza, which helps delay the progress of the neuromuscular disorder spinal muscular dystrophy (SMA)
is approved for use in the US and Europe, but flaws in the way medicines are approved in the UK, means children here are missing out.
Consultant endocrinologist, Professor Peter Hindmarsh
Expert in paediatric diabetes and Britain’s most inspiring health worker
The Zero Suicide Campaign
An approach that originated in the United States, its central premise is that suicide is not an inevitability for some people, but wholly avoidable and preventable.
Health Heroes Campaign
Launching the Mail’s new awards campaign to honour unsung medical heroes, Westminster terror victim Stephen Lockwood nominates the surgeon who saved him
Immunotherapy
Why does the ‘miracle’ new cancer therapy help people like Charlie – but not others? This groundbreaking treatment shrinks tumours by ‘switching on’ the immune system to fight foreign cells, but data so far suggests it won’t work for the majority of cancers
My Mother’s Ruin: The orphanage which made my mother’s life a misery…
Long abandoned, this grim orphanage for the children of Liverpool seamen has reopened — as a tourist attraction for believers in the paranormal. I went back to the institution that made my own mother’s childhood a misery.
A 100-year-old shoe box holds the secrets of lonely war time mothers of illegitimate children
Unearthed in the Scottish Highlands, an old shoe box contained letters from a generation of lonely and desperate illegitimate mothers confiding in an agony aunt who was not what she seemed
It’s completely heartbreaking to hear your child say: ‘I don’t want to live anymore’
Anorexia nervosa in primary school children is on the rise, I spoke to mothers who face a daily battle to keep their children alive
The Great Childbirth Taboo
The Royal College of Midwives has reversed it’s policy on natural labour but it’s too late to help the thousands of women damaged for life by instrumental deliveries
Read more here
Newsweek: The former miners who bought their own mine..
A group of former miners and engineers are healing the scars of Yorkshire pit closures with a state of the art mine and revolutionary business model …
Type 1 Diabetes: Every day you’re left thinking: ‘Did I damage him today?’
Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong and potentially lethal affliction that has reached epidemic proportions. It is incredibly difficult to manage — young sufferers and their families tell their moving stories.
A high-pressure autism treatment is changing these little boys’ lives
Tough love. Critics say it is demanding and cruel, and the Department of Health won’t recognise it. But a high pressure autism treatment is changing these little boys’ lives.
Organ Donor Shortage: How Tom Wilson, who was killed aged 22, helped 50 people to live
When Tom was killed in a tragic accident playing hockey, his parents gave permission for all his organs and tissues to be donated.
Edward Timpson and his mother, Alex on fostering 90 children
I had thought about fostering for years. Alex, mother of the then children’s minister, inspired me to get on with it.
Lessons from a state funded boarding school
How disadvantaged and vulnerable children are given the chance to shine alongside the sons and daughters of the wealthy.
Shared Lives: fostering vulnerable adults
While foster families look after children, the charity Shared Lives applies the model to challenged adults..
Child Trafficking: The Road to Nowhere
Every year, hundreds of children are smuggled into vans like this and end up in foster homes – only to disappear again
The number of children needing foster homes has risen from 49,700 to more than 59,000.
Five foster carers talk to me about how it feels to care for other people’s children..
The Mayor of London’s Music Fund five years’ on: How did the scholars get on?
Fives years’ ago I met musically talented children from poorer families all over London who had been chosen to receive financial support and mentoring so they could continue to play their instruments. I went back to find out whether the scheme had been a success
The academy where pupils sign a pledge to behave
Rigid discipline and academic vigour are helping to transform the lives of students at a school in an area scarred by deprivation and gang violence.
Our Family Outing: when two of your children are gay
My sister describes how she and her two kids came out.
The agony of mothers who lose custody of their children
Fathers often lose contact with their children after divorce, but more and more mothers are going through the same searing experience
Autistic Adults
Autistic children are a magnet for media attention, but what sort of lives do they lead when they grow up?
Behind the Scenes on Strictly…
Strictly Speaking, I won.. The unforgettable Nancy del Olio on Strictly and why it’s nothing without her.
Lucian Freud: intimate interviews with his models, including his daughter, Annie
Lucian Freud was an obsessive task master and father of 15 – His daughter, Annie and others remember what it was like to sit for him.
Locked-in Syndrome
These victims of locked-in syndrome are unable to move or speak, yet determined to life to the full.
Life After X Factor
What happens after you almost win X factor? And can you make a career out of losing?
Inside the School for Angry Infants
It costs £123,000 a year to send severely traumatised children who have been multiply excluded from primary schools to The Mulberry Bush School in Oxfordshire, where experts help unravel years of abuse and neglect.
Clare Lomas
Life in the Day is always a treat to interview but this one with the fabulous Clare Lomas on getting on with paraplegia is one of my favourites.
Tom’s Story
If you are still dithering about joining the organ donor register, read Dr Mary Black on Tom’s story here. It’s the most moving and informative piece I’ve read read on organ donation.
Sunday Times shoot with Yasmin Le Bon
Yasmin Le Bon… she’s still one of the most beautiful women in the world and unfailingly polite and courteous to everyone.
Fistula: Childbirth aged 12 in Sierra Leone
In many parts of Africa, the most prolific killer of young girls is pregnancy. Those who don’t die in childbirth, suffer appalling damage. I met pregnant twelve-year-old girls facing child birth in a Sierra Leone Slum.
Thalidomide: Born Fighting – thalidomide survivors’ 50-year battle for justice
Fifty years after the Thalidomide scandal broke, thalidomiders talk about their fight for justice and their battle to live normal lives.
Organ Donor Shortage: still unsure whether to carry a donor card?
Read this young couple’s heartbreaking story
Music Scholarships for London’s Poorest Children
Talented children who might otherwise slip through the music education net are being helped to fulfil their potential by mentoring and financial support
Doris Saachi’s minimalist home in Battersea
Art collector Doris Saachi on how to downsize the minimalist way
