Kathy,
>May I respectfully suggest that people consider that the jury in the Tabitha
>Walrond case had access to more information than has ever been made public,
>and that we have to trust they made the right decision based on the facts.
My sister is a lawyer and she made exactly the same comment. We cannot
assume the dury were ill-informed and prejudiced. Women do sometimes do
awful things to their babies, sadly. A few weeks ago, for instance, I
watched a documentary on the BBC about Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy,
whereby mothers deliberately harm their babies. I wondered about that in
this case, although it was not mentioned.
I was shocked, however, to discover that the daily home visits by a
midwife, for the first 10 days of life, that we take for granted in
Britain, is not universal. I didn't notice my 5 day old baby had severe
jaundice (orange skin, yellow eyes and brick red stools) and was in
total denial right up until we arrived at Special Care, on the midwives
orders. I pale to think would might have happened if I hadn't had that
service. However, as someone said to me on another list, there is a
*big* difference between 5 days PP and 8 *weeks*.
I think the midwife visits are very valuable in preventing such
tragedies - it helps mothers and babies, and maybe could have prevented
a tragedy like this from occuring. After the first 10 days, here in
Britain we are then passed on to a health visitor, who visits regularly
(according to need) for the first few years of a baby's life). I know I
run the HVs down sometimes, but the system is basically a good one,
IMHO. I am hoping that maybe some good will come out of this, in that
services for new mothers may be improved. Personally, I think it is a
red herring to say this is about breastfeeding - when I was working as a
nurse, I saw a formula fed baby almost starved to death by his parents.
The problem is the parenting, not the feeding method, IME.
--
Anna H.
mailto: [log in to unmask]
http://www.ratbag.demon.co.uk/anna/
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