Recently, I posted about the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and their bid to challenge existing laws which state that women cannot take a pill at home after deciding to terminate their pregnancy. You can read that post here.
Now, it seems that the High Court has decided that the laws will remain unchanged and that women will continue to be required to attend a clinic for monitoring whilst undergoing this simple procedure. An excellent course of treatment for those with health issues, inadequate care and limited resources to provide for themselves. Not quite to great for the women who end up traumatised by the lack of counselling, sterile environment and unnecessary foreign surroundings. Not quite so great for a large number of women who ARE able to look after themselves and who are able to avoid a lot of painful extra appointments to clinics.
In this article from the BBC, BPAS expresses concern over the fact that women have been revoked the power to choose when and where they take their pills. It also speaks of the service’s views that there is a possibility that women could suffer bleeding etc on their way home from the clinic; taking the pills at home would eliminate the risk of this happening when they are alone. If a woman is able to make an informed choice about her treatment and it is believed that she will be cared for at home, by loved ones, then any such outcome would be dealt with promptly- surely?
Image source: BBC news
The High Court’s ruling seems to assume that only young women with a lack of maturity or self-awareness will ever find themselves in the position of having to terminate a pregnancy. It seems to assume that all women in this position cannot be trusted to take their pills at home. It also seems to assume that unnecessary trips to clinics is no big deal at all.
On the other side of the argument, there are places, such as Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal. At least women in this country are allowed to make a decision about their own bodies and that decision must be respected. Its not an easy decision to make, for any woman, and it isn’t just restricted to undeducated young women.
I still believe that each and every case should be assessed on its own merits and that women should ultimately be given the right to decide on the circumstances of their treatment. I hope that the Health Secretary does decide to amend the law, but until then I guess English women should be thankful that they have at least some element of choice when it comes to their own bodies.
Having just read an article on the BBC news website over fears about the development of Britain’s children, I wondrered what other parents thought about this? The report states that there is a growing concern over the rate at which children are developing social skills, concentration skills and the ability to share, motivate themselves and co-operate with others.
Studies have found that “simple things like reading to children every day, regular bedtimes – even cuddling your children – will have a positive impact on their development.” and that there are direct links between socioeconomic status and a child’s readiness for school at the age of five.
It seems that families who are not high earners are failing to read to their children and that this is having a lasting impact on the prospective education of their children. I know as a teacher working at a school in one of the country’s most deprived areas, there are many children who are not given the same advantages as my children. I know that too many children come to school with empty tummies and with no prior knowledge and understanding of the world around them. I know that there is little I can do for these children outside of the classroom.
In my NQT year, a parent once asked me how she could help her year one child to improve in her reading. This was following World Book Day where the children had been asked to bring in their favourite book to share with the class. Most of the children brought nothing; one child brought an old copy of Exchange and Mart. I told this child’s parent that a really good place to start was the local library, where the child could choose a book that interested them and that they would enjoy reading a little more than their school reading book.
I think you know where this is going. If the libraries are going to close, then how will we ever improve the chances of these children? Someone tweeted recently that we had to get real about this situation and that in the scheme of things closing a few libraries was nothing compared to the thousands of people around the world who were suffering through war, famine etc. True. But isn’t it our duty to take resonsibility for the children on our own doorsteps too? With no library to access books, some children won’t get a bedtime story and, as the report has suggested, won’t develop at a ‘normal’ rate as a result. Of course, many other factors need to be considered here also, but the importance of reading and being read to is, in my opinion, so great. Children learn to communicate, share, educate themselves and to develop vital language skills through reading. With no libraries, so many children are going to miss out on this and one day they will be adults. I wonder who will help them then?
For more information on the importance of books, visit:
Bookstart
Reading For Life
Find a Library
Guardian- The Best Children’s Books Ever
Since I started this blog, I have ‘met’ so many women who have been through a traumatic birth. Some women have dealt with it well and are moving on with their lives- after all, when you have children to deal with, what else can you do other than move on or break down? Some women are still coming to terms with what happened to them and that is where I consider myself to be right now. Some women have shared their stories with me and some women find that the details are still too raw and painful to put into words right now. The fact of the matter is that all of these women, myself included, have suffered birth trauma to some extent or another and the sad thing is that hospitals and GPs are still ill equipped to deal with the after-math. Not only that, but hospitals are severely understaffed and under-funded and so the chances of more and more families experiencing a terrifying birth experience does not look set to diminish. I wouldn’t wish those dark days on anyone.
Image source: flickr.com
Many women I’ve spoken to have been telling me that should they have another child, they would like to have a c-section in an effort to avoid a similar situation. I requested an elective section when I fell pregnant with the baby and was subsequnetly talked out of it. I was dismissed. A report on The Guardian online in November 2010 stated that “The NHS is responding to a surge in cases of birth trauma by setting up specialist support services to reduce the rising demand for a caesarean delivery from those who, after a bad experience, are scared to undergo labour again.” Again, I was offered ‘counselling’ after my son was born and I can’t say that I feel enclined to labour again, should I decide to have another baby. The very though fills me with dread.
The ‘counselling’ I received came via a retired midwife, inconsiderately based at the same hospital where the near tragedy took place. I can’t tell you how scared I was walking down those corridors again. re-visiting the scene of the crime as it were. I had two sessions. The first consisted of telling the counsellor a little about myself and how motherhood had changed me. Then she proceeded to give me advice on how to handle my ‘difficult’ baby. Apparently, she has always wondered about mothers who pull their hair out over a baby that won’t sleep. Apparently, HER babies were never a problem because she knew how to deal with them. What a way to make a person feel just a little bit more uselss as a parent. The second session involved us talking through my birth notes.
Image source:craniohealing.co.uk
I sat there in her sterile, over-heated and window-less room and poured over the notes from both of my births. I read about how each of my labours deteriorated in the same way and how each of my babies almost lost their precious lives. I read about mistakes that had been made, not once but twice. I discovered that my precious son had been taken from me limp and blue and had had a tube inserted down his throat to get him to breathe. The first hands that held my children were not mine. I read words that were not true, not how I remembered them. I read notes detailing how I had been ‘unnecessarily’ upset during my labour with my son (after being told I wasn’t even in labour). I read the awful, chilling words:
“6.30- heart rate decel.
6.32- we ran to theatre
6.35- knife to skin.”
and the slighly more optimistic:
“6.45- live male born.”
I sat there, tears cousing down my face and my breath catching in my throat. I sat there, trying to understand this foreign language and scrawled handwriting. The backdated notes, written post-event due to the chaotic nature of events. The ugly, poorly phrased “we ran to theatre” rising in my throat. I sat there with my crisis before me and my counsellor? She sat at her computer, typing up some notes from her previous patient. After a while she asked if I had any questions. Anything she could help me with. I thought so hard about that. I doubted there was anything she could really help me with. But I wanted to help myself. I asked her why they had had to use general anaesthetic. That was the thing I had most difficulty accepting. I felt that if they’d kept me awake, I would’ve been a lot better equipped to deal with it all. She told me she would get back to me.
Image source: telegraph.co.uk
How does the NHS expect to deal with the rising numbers of women requesting sections due to birth trauma, if this is their idea of a midwife counsellor? Dr Tracey Johnstone claims that “Women are more frightened of labour and delivery now. Among women there almost seems to be a competition about who has suffered the most during childbirth, talking about 18-hour labours and the like, and that scares other women before they have their babies”. How can the NHS expect to deal with birth trauma affectively if this is the opinion of their consultants in foetal medicine? I did not request a section because I had listened to horror stories. I am not naive or stupid. I suffered birth trauma. I almost lost a child. I wanted to avoid that second time around- wouldn’t you? Instead, I was subjected to a second emergency section and I was left traumatised and desperate. I am not in competition with anyone. I am simply a woman who almost lost two babies, perhaps through errors in judegement. I am a woman who was not offered sufficient after-care and who was certainly not counselled. If I do have another baby, I will not be delivering naturally. I hope that you realise that is not an easy decision to make- its the only one I can make.
**Please take the time to visit The Birth Trauma Association website if you have been affected.
Dear Competitive mums,
I know what you’re up to. I know that you think you are slightly better than the rest of us and I also know that you think your pushing and shoving of your children’s lives is going to win you prizes. It won’t. I have an idea. I know you don’t think that I am worthy of such an indulgence, but you seem to have assumed I am not an educated person. I think maybe you aren’t used to being around people who can think for themselves…
Anyway, here is my idea.
Stop priming your children to push in-front of the other, more amiable children at gymnastics, in life and in dreams. Stop instructing your children to look down their noses in the same way that you do. Stop teaching them to judge and to condemn, like you have become accustomed to doing. Stop pushing and shoving your children to do more, more, more- better, better, better. Stop inflicting your own broken, unfulfilled dreams on your chidren and instead, open your ears. Listen to your children. Let them guide you. Let your children decide the path their life is to take before they break free from your route and carve a map that doesn’t include you.
Competitive mums- don’t push, push, push. Let your children be children.
Love from me.
ps if your daughters carry on pushing infront of MY daughter and looking at her as if she isn’t worthy, I will come and poke you in the eye.
Image source: cartoonstock.com
I’m exhausted. I tweeted someone on Saturday asking for her secret to getting her baby to sleep through, mentioning that after nine months of insomnia whilst pregnant and fourteen months of broken sleep, I was now feeling desperate. Make that an understatement. I may as well have asked my old self because I was once in posession of one of those babies that slept. The big one never murmered from the age of around six weeks. I’m ashamed to say I thought that was normal. I never knew what hard work a baby could really be.
Image source: vivahateonline.com
My son and I have ‘enjoyed’ a rocky relationship with sleep, its fair to say. In the first days, he would sleep for only forty minutes, day and night, before waking and screaming for a couple of hours. As he got older, and medicated, he slept for longer periods but then I started to suffer more and more from anxiety. I actually became obsessed with how much sleep I would get. After settling him back in his bed, I would calculate how much sleep I was likely to get if he woke four hours later. And then it would be an hour later so I would adjust my timings and before I knew it he was awake again and I hadn’t slept a wink. I quickly became quite ill and, perhaps sensing it, the baby started to sleep through!
For two glorious months, he slept quite literally like a baby. Cue insomnia. I would wake at ridiculous times and worry that I had heard him cry. I would check on him and sometimes accidentally wake him, letting myself in for a couple of hours worth of screaming. I learnt to stay in bed when I woke and instead, tried to calm myself with the thought that at least I was resting, if not sleeping.
Just as I was starting to relax- and sleep- he stopped sleeping. He stopped eating. He started getting a virus here and a tummy bug there. Today I have been told he is once more getting over tonsilitis- his third bout. He isn’t napping. He is clinging. He is refusing to eat. He is waking two to three times a night and wanting milk. And guess what? When he’s back in bed I’m back to worrying about getting to sleep.
Viscous circle? Will it end? How can I be a mum today when I feel like a paper doll, just floating around the house instead of making footprints?
I know that tomorrow is a new day… I just wish it had some rest before it.
First of all, Floella Benjamin is a Baroness! What does one have to do to become one of those? The only other one I know is Margaret Thatcher and she, quite frankly, scares me. Floella Benjamin has apparently shed her Playschool image and has taken to the House of Lords to berate us for our television habits and our reliance on the electric babysitter. In this BBC article, Benjamin says that,
“Too many modern offerings encouraged “passive viewing and are used as surrogate parents or baby-sitters”
and went on to add that,
“Programmes like these should be banned, especially if television sets are in children’s bedrooms. In fact, I would ban all television and computers in children’s bedrooms.”
Now, I don’t agree with generalisation and with proposing widespread bans in this manner but I think Baroness Benjamin has a valid point. Some of the television programmes out there for kids are just AWFUL. If any of you joined in with Kate takes5′s recent Listography on top five most annoying Children’s shows, more than a few were mentioned on the highly entertaining posts over there. Some of the shows targeted at our children are bad. Really bad. But some are great. I’ve blogged about Baby TV, an entire channel dedicated to babies and these guys really know their audience. The baby is glued. For about thirty seconds. But, hey, he’s glued for that thirty seconds none the less.
Now, the big one does not have a television in her bedroom and whilst I am NOT condemning parents that have equipped their child’s bedroom with one, I am going to tell you our reasons why.
1. we would rather she didn’t spend all her time in her room watching TV before she turns into a teenager
2. we would rather she read books in her room
3. we like spending time with her
4. we like talking to her
Image source: bbc.co.uk
We don’t worry about her watching nonsense because WE watch nonsense on TV- hello? Eastenders?- and at the end of the day the television is there to entertain, not educate. WE are here to educate our children. School exists to educate our children. Anything extra they pick up from television is a bonus, surely. So perhaps Floella Benjamin has got it a little wrong? Yes, there are programmes designed to educate children and yes, no doubt Playschool DID play a part in educating the children of the seventies. But I don’t think its fair to say that children’s television shows today are ALL bad. And I don’t think its fair to assume that all Playschool age children are holed up in their bedrooms day in, day out watching rubbish on the box. For a start, studies have shown that children can only concentrate for as many minutes as the years they have been alive, so the average four year old will sit, rapt, for four minutes (or so they say).
Bejamin does go on to explain the power of television in providing educational stimulation and in improving “attention, expressive language, comprehension, articulation, general knowledge as well as social interaction and life skills.” Yes, I agree. As a teacher, I use clips and videos to help stimulate and illustrate a point now and then. And yes, the television is such a major point of focus for most homes that I am inclined to agree that soemthing needs to be done about the mountain on drivel on the box… Switch it over. There are SO MANY children’s channels on the television now and there are also parental controls! I don’t let my kids watch complete rubbish- not all the time, anyway. I honestly don’t think there is anything wrong with watching a programme for entertainment. Our kids are pushed so hard at school each day, given homework (you know how I feel about that) andperhaps chores too. Is there really anything wrong with letting them watch a little bit of rubbish whilst you whip up a healthy meal for dinner? Are we really unable to guage ourselves how much television our chidlren should watch? Sure, some parents may need more guidance than others but I think that Floella may be taking her Baroness title a little too far… what do you think?
I’ve just read an article published on The Guardian news website, sent to me by the lovely Jayne over at Mum’s The Word. The article is entitled I Was Pregnant For Ten Months and I suddenly thought, hey! Me too!
My first pregnancy was text-book normal and I did not experience once jot of morning sickeness, swelling, headaches or any of the other delightful pregnancy bonuses there are. I did have heartburn once, but I think that was more down to wolfing two packets of Rolos in quick sucession than anything else. When I booked in with the midwife I was given a date one week past my due date, to discuss induction if the baby hadn’t arrived by then. As that date came and went, I was booked for an induction- common practice right? Well, no actually, it doesn’t have to be.
I never questioned anything. I did, however, read that at my hospital a high percentage of inductions failed and ended up as emergency sections and I remember telling my sister that I had a feeling that would happen to me. It did.
I was induced at 7 am, following an examination by a midwife who exclaimed that I was nowhere near ready to deliver and that she would eat her hat if my baby was here before the weekend. It was Monday. I wonder now why I didn’t have the foresight to question why they wanted my baby out if she was nowhere near ready to come by herself?
Image source:susty.com
The article talks of many American women regularly getting to 43 weeks of pregnancy and that it isn’t all that strange at all. In France, 41 weeks is considered term and the women there aren’t overdue until 43 weeks. The article also speaks of
“tales of weirdly overdue babies… The actor Jackie Chan claims his mother carried him for 12 months before he was born by caesarean section, weighing 12lb. There is also a story of a woman in a prisoner of war camp who allegedly waited until the camp was liberated to give birth – at 12 months’ gestation.”
and claims that only 5% of babies are actually born on their ‘due date’. I wonder why UK doctors are so eager to induce and get our babies out early? The writer of the article, Viv Groskop, was not given any clear answers to that question.
My induction began at 7am and by 10am I was having ‘niggles’. I was strapped to a monitor and I was told to press a button whenever I felt anything. For what its worth (and its a different story, really) I was told that I wasn’t in labour and so suffered these niggles, strapped to the bed, for hours. Eventually, it was determined that I was in labour and I was taken down to the delivery room, amidst grumbling that they were really short staffed (again, another story). To cut another really long stort short, my induction failed. My daughter was born via emergency section at 2am the next morning, weighing inly 6lb15. For a baby who was fifteen days late, thats really tiny.
The next afternoon, my midwife came to see me and actually brought a hat on a platter with a knife fork, asking me if I wanted to share her lunch.
I truly believe that my daughter was not ready to be born and perhaps was not even late at all. I truly believe that I would’ve laboured naturally and would’ve given birth naturally. Her birth affected my second pregnancy to the point where I refused to be induced again.
Worryingly, the article talks of a complication called “iatrogenic” (“doctor-caused”) prematurity – “inductions where babies turn out to be premature and then spend a week or more in the neonatal intensive care unit”. Whilst my daughter probably wasn’t premature, she certainly wasn’t quite ready to make an appearance when they induced me. The stress of that caused her heart-rate to decelerate and take longer to recover with each contraction. The emergency section saved her life but I wonder whether her birth could’ve been so much different. Isn’t it time we trusted mums a little bit more to know what is best for their babies? A woman who has had a normal pregnancy, free from complications and without any other health concerns should surely be allowed to carry her baby to term. Surely?
