Latest Julia McQuillan Stories

New study uncovers effects of social pressure to have children on different groups of US women Women who choose to be permanently childfree perceive more social pressures to become mothers than other women, but feel less distress about not having kids than women who are childless from infertility or other reasons, a new national study shows. The study, from a national survey of nearly 1,200 American women of reproductive age with no children, identified various reasons why women have no...

New study shows 77 percent think being a good father is very important, 49 percent said same about careers The classic figure of a distant, career-focused father who spends lots of time at the office and who has little time for his kids might be getting outdated, a new study shows. In a nationwide survey that examined Americans' feelings on fatherhood, 77 percent of U.S. men rated being a good father as very important, while just 49 percent said the same about having a successful...

Social pressures, attitudes on pregnancy examinedFor years, a widely held assumption was that women of childbearing age fell neatly into two camps: those trying to have children, and those not trying to have children.A new nationwide study suggests, however, that nearly a fourth of women consider themselves "OK either way" about getting pregnant "“ a wide swath of ambivalence that surprised researchers, and that could reshape how doctors approach many aspects of women's health...