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Background:Media framing can influence people’s perceptions of social changes in family building, and has the potential to influence their future actions.Objectives:to analyse the type of framing and construction used in British newsprint of transnational commercial surrogacy.Methods:UK newspapers were searched using the search engine Lexis-Nexis. One hundred and ninety-seven articles were analysed. Content analysis was undertaken to identify the use of gain, loss, neutral, alarm and vulnerability frames, as well as type of construction (i.e. ethical, social, legal, financial and medical). Four researchers independently analysed articles using a coding strategy.Results:Differences between serious (mainly legal, financial), middle-market (legal) and tabloid (social, financial) newspapers were found. There were three main foci; buying babies – affordable only to those wealthy enough to pay for it; the legal complications of transnational surrogacy – reporting a sense of the legal system lagging behind this practice; and gay families – repeatedly questioning their suitability as parents – demonstrating a prevailing heterosexual stereotype about reproduction and parenting.Conclusions:Stereotyping was prevalent and the welfare of children and medical aspects of transnational surrogacy were minimally addressed, indicating the media selectively influences its readership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by John Worobey and Maria Islas Lopez on their study of differences in traditional views of babies in American mothers, and another by Amy Wenzel, Erin N. Haugen and Melanie Goyetter on postpartum distress in women.

Focuses on the public attitudes to the issue of social sexing, allowing parents to choose the gender of their baby for non-medical reasons, and to genetic information of offspring in Great Britain. Result of the public consultation conducted by the Human Genetics Commission and the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority; Views of the Human Genetics Commission on genetics and reproductive decision making; Variation in the public attitudes to genetic information and sex selection for medical reasons and for non-medical reasons.

One of the topic of direct relevance to the readers of the journal was British Government's encouragement to reduce the rate of caesarean deliveries. The other issue appeared in the "British Medical Journal" raised something which is also being addressed by the English Equal Opportunities Commission, namely the treatment of women at work while pregnant. The media focus was particularly on elective operations. A number of articles appeared, some of which addressed the conflict between the reality of women's childbirth choices, promoted in the Changing Childbirth report of 1993, the pressure to have a natural birth, and staff shortages all of which make the issue relevant to all those involved in pregnancy and childbirth, women and their families, health professionals as well as managers seeking to reduce costs. A number of features addressed the risks to mother and baby associated with both surgery and with natural childbirth and many were illustrated by personal accounts of birth experiences.

Introduces a series of articles which appeared in the February 2005 issue of the "Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology". Coping experiences of women who had a miscarriage; Comparison of midwives' awareness of their cases depression scores; Factors affecting attachment in fostered infants.

Introduces articles related to reproduction published in the May 2004 issue of the "Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology." Concern on the psychological state of the mother; Assessment of the utility of a modification of the Maternal Foetal Attachment Scale; Regression analysis between attachment and personality.