Childhood maltreatment often continues from one generation to the next, perpetuating the cycle of abuse and depression. In a bid to promote healthier parent-child relationships, researchers from the University of Fukui compared mothers who engaged in maltreatment with those who did not, revealing that childhood trauma increases emotional empathy and depressive symptoms, raising the risk of abusive parenting. Their findings highlight the need for mental health support and parenting programs to help break this cycle.

An article of the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló published in the journal Autism in adulthood has collected some of the needs detected in autistic women regarding motherhood, among them, the shortage of professionals with updated knowledge to identify autism and provide a better individualised attention or the convenience of a family and social support network that favours the transition to the experience of being mothers.The article signed by the lecturer and researcher Irene García Molina and the Master's student in Family Intervention and Mediation Mónica Cortés Calvo, collects the experience of nine Spanish autistic women, seven mothers and two who want to become mothers, aged between 29 and 58, who responded in an interview to open questions about motherhood and life as a couple, which were evaluated under a qualitative approach.

Kyoto, Japan -- The fuzzy and adorable otter has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years. These aquatic mammals are friendly, playful, and make cute cooing sounds, so their social media stardom seems only natural.

Sadly, this enthusiasm for otters has a dark side: they are targets for smuggling. In Japan, their popularity has raised demand for them as pets and as featured species at exotic animal cafés, making Japan one of the most prominent destinations for captive otters with ambiguous origins.

Asian small-clawed otters -- the species most common at Japanese zoos and cafés -- are native to South and Southeast Asia. They are classified as vulnerable by the IUCN Red list and their international trade for commercial purposes is prohibited. Yet they continue to be captured and smuggled into Japan, with Thailand as the main source of this illegal trade.