Celebrity Talks About Homebirth!
Charlotte Church talks about her homebirth and breastfeeding, all in all a very good interview! (thanks RoseRed!) and more alternative parenting news from the UK, is anyone following this? Bringing Up Baby and some controversy
Baby Guru Steps Up Pressure
How’s the Continuum Concept mama doing?
Love,
Heather
Celebrity » Celebrity Talks About Homebirth! said,
October 7, 2007 @ 1:31 pm
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptCharlotte Church talks about her homebirth and breastfeeding, all in all a very good interview! (thanks RoseRed!) and more alternative parenting news from the UK, is anyone following this? Bringing Up Baby and some controversy Baby Guru … […]
bunnywhack said,
October 8, 2007 @ 12:01 am
I’ve only seen the first episode think its on again tomorow but lets face it if gina ford sees something wrong then it must be really bad and it was. The mother was in tears at leaving her twins outside in the cold and hearing them cry. your not allowed to even look at your child while feeding them no eye contact at all as the baby will act up and not take all the milk your trying to force down.
One of the continum mums was doing great very relaxed getting loads of sleep very contented parents and baby really good advert for co sleeping baby wearing and breastfeeding. The other one was having trouble with the breastfeeding with the latching on pain and watching her wince brought it all back.
janaki said,
October 8, 2007 @ 5:56 am
I really liked that interview! I hope I can do my next birth free of meds!
I do hope the mommy that’s having trouble breastfeeding gets some help!
Vashti said,
October 10, 2007 @ 6:45 am
Oh dear, where to start?
My partner and I are childless, so we’ve been watching Bringing Up
Baby to see how the Continuum Concept families do. Their
experiences with babywearing and co-sleeping have been inspiring: as I
recall, the mother who had trouble with breastfeeding needed to be
blued to hospital from her homebirth and the baby was incubated for a
couple of days. Watching the co-sleepers get six hours’ more or less
uninterrupted sleep while the “routine” family were kept up all night
by a neglected, screaming baby… well, it made me more confident
about my attraction to co-sleeping.
But Claire Verity! Seriously, I almost wish I were a fundamentalist
so that I’d have the consolation of knowing that woman will burn in
hell for what she’s done to those children. Left alone in their own
room all night - something a UK SIDS charity has stated *doubles* the
risk of cot death. “Allowed” a cuddle for ten minutes every
afternoon! Not allowed to cuddle or make eye contact when feeding!
Left alone outside in a pram for four hours at a time, while they
scream!
She is paid A THOUSAND POUNDS A DAY to give people this “advice”. The
UK’s nursing register has issued a statement saying that “maternity
nurses” are not registered with them, because of her. And her advice
is self-contradictory: she insists that a baby can’t cry for
attention, to be held in its mother’s arms, because it’s too young to
know how to. Yet from the other side of her mouth she calls the baby
manipulative and insists it only cries for attention. Heather, I wept
to watch a seven-year-old girl dismissively tell her mother that her
new baby sister was only crying for attention as it screamed and
screamed.
Apparently on tonight’s show she’s going to try to wean a
thirteen-week-old baby. I hope she goes to jail.
There is a Downing Street petition regarding the show:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/parentingshows/AkB7kZEVI3VmEcZKkBA2xSW
You have to be a UK resident to sign it.
Vashti
RoseRed said,
October 10, 2007 @ 10:46 am
Public opinion in the UK is wholeheartedly against Clare Verity and her baby-hating attitute, even from the conservative, routine-favouring publications. And lots of people are becoming more interested in the continuum concept way of parenting as a result of the programme. That’s the silver lining in the very big cloud of watching parents being coached into cruelty towards their tiny babies.
Julinda said,
October 11, 2007 @ 5:40 am
I love to hear Charlotte Church sing and I’m glad to see her being a great example to other young moms! (Can someone send this article to Britney Spears?)
On the other subject, Claire Verity - I am speechless.
Julinda
zaphod5 said,
October 12, 2007 @ 2:36 am
I am not exactly sure who Charlotte Church is but I would not use her as a role model on homebirths. I read only to the end of her homeborth experience, but by that, I thought she had just a hospital birth at home. She was gassed (oxygen and nitrous oxide) and had a shot of demural. She laughs that if she had oppurtunity she would have had an epiderial. Excuse me?? I am not saying that her suffering was not real but it seems she had only a partial natural birth. Truthfully, this is all fine and dandy but the idea that she is making herself seem like she did something extremely extraordinary kind of irks me.
Vashti said,
October 13, 2007 @ 7:32 pm
I agree; Charlotte Church lives a few miles from me and I suspect that her experience of the local midwifery service (if, indeed, she didn’t go private) would be very different from mine. Entonox/gas and air is very common at British homebirths, though; community midwives carry it routinely.
Popping up again to observe that the NSPCC have chimed in regarding Ms Verity:
Having reviewed the programmes that have been screened to date, the NSPCC believes that they are publicising outdated and potentially harmful methods of baby care and we are calling on TV executives to be more careful when making such programmes.
…
Programme-makers must recognise that some viewers may consider what they see as an approved method. They have a responsibility to tell viewers when methods are widely disputed by health professionals and academics.”
Once we have viewed the final programme, we will decide what further action we will take.
msrlmoss said,
November 6, 2007 @ 10:21 am
Yes, the NSPCC made the point that thinking about babies as “manipulative” is one of the things that leads to abuse.
Claire Scott, the CC mentor, did a live chat on Mumsnet recently. She set the record straight on the mentee (is that a word?) who had struggled with latch-on problems. Apparently she’d had two LLL Leaders out to assist her - all of this was filmed - and she ended up going great guns.
But all of this was edited out.
Because, of course, a woman overcoming breastfeeding issues and there being lots of support out there if you know where to look - well, it just doesn’t make good telly, does it?
The thing that really annoys me though was that godawful voiceover. “Some experts believe that leaving a baby less than six months old in a cot in its own room can lead to cot death.” Some? SOME?? How about, er, ALL?!