Experts have announced that there is no evidence either acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine improve the likelihood of getting pregnant through IVF.

Many couples now turn to acupuncture in a bid to get pregnant but the British Fertility Society says this may be a waste of time and money.

The researchers looked at 14 trials involving 2,670 people to come up with their new guidance.

They found that it did not matter what stage of the IVF process acupuncture took place - it still had no effect on the pregnancy or live birth rate.

However they also found it didn't actually do any harm as there was no difference in miscarriage rates either.

The team said there were no rigorous trials published on the use of Chinese herbs, so they decided there was currently no evidence to support the use of these in fertility treatments either.

There's some bad news today - pregnant women are being told that they shouldn't be "eating for two" as this may actually be harmful for the baby.

What a load of spoilsports. One of the few benefits of being pregnant (apart from the baby at the end of it) is that you get to pretty much eat what you like. Well, no more, apparently.

Researchers say if women eat diets which are high in fat or carbohydrates this can affect genes in their children.

So all those cheese sandwiches were probably a bad idea, then?

The study found that girls are more likely to be affected genetically by what their mother eats, although sons of obese mothers are more likely to become obese and develop diabetes as they get older.

The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and was based on observations of pregnant mice. Right. Mice. Okay then.

Women who are expecting babies can reduce their child's risk of developing multiple sclerosis when they are older - by simply drinking milk.

That's the finding from a study carried out by the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA.

Researchers looked at 35,794 female nurses whose mothers gave information about their diet during pregnancy.

Over a 16-year period, 199 of the nurses developed multiple sclerosis (MS).

The researchers discovered that the risk of MS was lower in the women whose mothers had drunk a lot of milk when they were pregnant.

Vitamin D was also found to have a similar effect in reducing the risk of MS.

An unborn baby died because its mother had gum disease, it has been reported.

Pregnant women are now being warned about the dangers of poor dental hygiene.

It is very rare for something like this to happen - this is thought to be the first time oral bacteria was responsible for the death of a baby which had nearly reached full term.

The case was revealed in a study published in the Obstetrics and Gynaecology journal.

A 35-year-old woman had the common gum disease gingivitis.

Her baby was stillborn at 39 weeks and doctors found they could trace the oral bacteria in the mum's mouth to bacteria which was found in the baby's bloodstream, lungs and stomach.

A new "morning-after" pill can stop unwanted pregnancies up to five days after sex, it has been reported.

The drug was tested in a study of 5,500 women, published in the Lancet, and stopped 98% of pregnancies when taken five days after unprotected sex.

It's called Ellaone, and is almost twice as effective after three days as the conventional "morning-after" pill which is usually given out by chemists.

The Sun reports this news with an inflammatory headline - "5-day pill to 'dump' a baby". Nice and sensitive, then.

The Daily Mail has found an anti-abortion campaigner to criticise the pill, calling it an "abortive agent".

Josephine Quintavalle, of the Pro-Life Alliance, told the Mail: "If you take a morning-after pill within 24 hours, there is always the argument that the sperm may not have fertilised the egg by then, meaning pregnancy has not yet happened.

"But if this pill works for five days there is no argument. This is not a contraceptive, it is an abortive agent."

But researcher Dr Anna Glasier, of NHS Lothian in Edinburgh, told the Sun: "If it stops more unwanted pregnancies, that is money well spent."

I couldn't agree more.