Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor<\/a> and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson said she had felt pressure to be \u201cperfect\u201d as she anticipated the birth of her daughter Athena Elizabeth Rose, who was born several weeks premature on 22 January.<\/p>\nBeatrice has joined forces with premature birth research charity Borne, to campaign for increased research into prematurity, which she believes could be \u201clife-changing\u201d for parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think so often, especially as mums, we spend our lives, you know, feeling we have to be perfect to do this,\u201d Beatrice told the special edition of The Borne Podcast published on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd sometimes, when you are faced with that moment of learning that your baby\u2019s going to come a bit early, it can be incredibly lonely.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd even now, talking to some of the mums who know about my work with Borne, they feel this sense of, like, sort of life changing relief that can come with knowing that there is an organisation there that is supporting the research and supporting the questions, and asking some of these important questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beatrice was due to give birth to her daughter Athena in early spring, but received medical advice not to travel long distances in December. <\/p>\n
![\"Princess](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/e447ac384197a8aa04ef149bb29cf67fY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzYzMDYxMjUz-2.82364107.jpg\")
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open image in gallery<\/p>\n
Princess Beatrice and ambassador Laura Tobin (Stefan Rousseau\/PA) (PA Wire)<\/p>\n
She had originally planned to spend the holidays overseas, but joined the royal family at church in Sandringham on Christmas Day after doctors warned that a premature arrival was a possibility.<\/p>\n
Last week, Beatrice, who is patron of Borne, visited the charity\u2019s research laboratories at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London as part of the Every Week Counts campaign.<\/p>\n
She told the Borne Podcast she is sharing her story in the hopes it will allow others to come forward, adding everyone can \u201clearn from each other\u201d.<\/p>\n
The princess said her favourite thing about being a mum is that it is \u201clike a secret club of sharing stories\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"Princess](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-1398851646.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
open image in gallery<\/p>\n
Princess Beatrice and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi (Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I love the fact that Borne is there to support them (mothers) when they\u2019re going through something incredibly traumatic, and how can we make sure that phenomenal data, great tools, great doctors, have everything at their disposal so that no Mum can feel alone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Each year, 60,000 babies are born prematurely in the UK, making for one in 13 births.<\/p>\n
Globally, 15 million babies are born early, and complications from prematurity remain the leading cause of neonatal death and lifelong disability, according to Borne. Yet, pregnancy and childbirth receive less than 2 % of medical research funding, the charity said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really quite shocked to learn that we really do not have as much data with women\u2019s health, with pregnant women\u2019s health,\u201d Beatrice told The Borne Podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I was really passionate about high quality data being able to enrich the medical field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the key thing is that all the scientists that we\u2019ve approached to be part of the Borne collaborative have said: look, alone, we are making no progress, but with Borne helping us to work together, we will make a difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will change what is going on in the hospitals every day all around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-575629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-royal","9":"tag-royal-families","10":"tag-royal-family","11":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115563627805321087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}