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Pregnancy is a time of great excitement and planning. But what happens when the baby arrives much earlier than expected — dangerously early?
Jennifer Macey's baby Billie spent three months in the parallel universe that is the neo-natal intensive care unit, eight years ago.
Jennifer — and three mothers she shared the experience with — tell us what it was like.
Plus: Find out about the robots that could eradicate manual scavenging work in India, and listen to RN's new series on why the Cold War still matters.
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| The first time Jennifer Macey saw her baby was on an A4 piece of paper — a photo that the nurse had printed out.
Jennifer writes: "She put it on my lap and said: 'You've had a girl.'
"I blinked through the fog of the general anaesthetic and stared at the hot pink thing with a plastic tube in her mouth, and wires stuck to her.
"Although she looked like a baby joey, eyes shut, unfinished as if she were on her way to her mother's pouch, I felt love."
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| For most of us, hearing the world plastic makes us think of single-use plastics like plastic bags or disposable plastic water bottles, but plastic covers a much wider variety of materials than that.
They're become an inescapable part of our lives, due to their versatility, flexibility, durability, affordability and because they're relatively lightweight.
If we threw away all plastics, we wouldn't have smartphones or insulation on our wires, says Michelle Coote, a chemist at the Australian National University.
"I think people don't realise for example, all the plastic that goes into an aircraft, is in part what makes it possible for it to fly."
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| They work all day in sewers and latrines, wading through filthy sludge up to their waists. They carry untreated human waste in buckets without helmets, gloves or masks.
Every five days, on average, one of them will die.
It's illegal and demeaning, but it's work for more than 1 million people in India.
"On paper it is illegal to hire somebody as a manual scavenger, but the practice still exists," Mumbai-based journalist and author Puja Changoiwala.
"There are still people are who are doing this work, who are still dying, and no-one is being held accountable."
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| We tend to assume the Bible has some place — for better or worse — in debates about morality and social values, writes Top 5 scholar Gareth Wearne.
But why do we care about the opinions of writers who lived 2,000 years ago or more?
From its stances on slavery to sexual ethics and gender equality, the Bible contains much that could be considered problematic.
Yet as recent debates about freedom of religion or same-sex marriage show, the Bible is not going away any time soon.
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My recommendation: Matt Bevan | | | | Matt Bevan, the presenter of ABC News' award-winning podcast Russia, If You're Listening and newsreader on RN Breakfast, loves The Minefield with Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens. (The podcast version of course, as "20 mins on the radio is never enough".)
"Listening to Minefield keeps my moral tools sharp, which I find equally handy when I'm negotiating the argy bargy of international affairs as the transition from bath-to-stories-to-bed for my kids," he says.
"It's refreshing to hear opinions changing in the course of an argument, rather than the doubling down we're used to in most analysis of daily events.
"Sometimes I sense that the international guests are amazed that this forum exists and I cherish the fact that there's room in the RN stable for a program like Minefield.
"We have programs that look at what we do and think, programs that guess at why, so we also need to be challenged as to whether we should."
Tune into The Minefield at 11:30am on Wednesday — or catch up on ABC Listen. | | |
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News, Events and Opportunities |
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| | | | | | | | | Thirty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War was over. How did it end so suddenly and so peacefully? This special four-part series explores the stories that explain why the Cold War still matters. | | | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | Join us for an evening of real science told by real scientists: no props, no slides – just great stories. It's all part of Ockham's Razor – the ABC podcast for anyone with a compelling story of science. | | | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | Season 3 of Russia, If You're Listening looks at where the scheme to destroy western democracies began, the damage it's done, and where it might end. | | | | | | |
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| | | | | | | | | Soul Search presenter Meredith Lake's book on the contested role the Bible has played in Australian life has won the Australian history category of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards. | | | | | | |
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