One of our Mums in Spain members shares her experience following her recent miscarriage. Although a sensitive subject to approach it is an unfortunate reality for some, and we hope that this thoughtful contribution from Sam will help anyone else who might be going through a similar situation.

The best piece of advice I had from someone when I was pregnant was not to skip the "caesarian" chapter of my birth book just because I didn't think it applied to me. She had done the same thing and gone on to have an unplanned caesarian and had wished she had been more informed.

I speak Swedish and my husband's native language is English. When we had our two children, we had no doubt that we wanted to raise them with equal access to both languages. Now, years later, when I've made promoting multilingual child-raising not just my avocation, but my vocation as well, people ask me for the straight story, warts and all.

All foreign employees working for Spanish companies and self-employed foreigners in Spain must usually contribute to Spanish social security. Generally if you're an employee in Spain, you will be insured under Spanish social security legislation and won't have any liability for social security contributions in your home country or country of domicile.

If you are travelling to certain countries, you may need to have vaccinations to safeguard against diseases found in those areas. However, if you are pregnant, the general advice from the NHS is that not all vaccines are safe for your baby, especially live ones, which include vaccination against: yellow fever, typhoid, rubella, BCG and MMR.

In Spain nearly two children out of every ten are obese which is nearly double the number  compared to 20 years ago. This places Spain in third place after the US and the United  Kingdom in terms of child obesity according to the International Association for Obesity.