Woman's Hour - Feeding Your Baby, Walking the South West Path, Meeting your Ex

Episode Date: January 28, 2019

Woman’s Hour has joined forces with BBC Radio Sheffield for a special series of programmes looking at how women are feeding their babies and how it makes them feel. Today Jane talks to their Weekend Breakfast presenter Kat Cowan who’s recently returned to work after maternity leave, following the birth of her son Cooper. Plus hearing from other mums around the country about what they went through whether they breast, bottle or mixed fed their babies.We speak to author Raynor Winn, who lost her home and her livelihood just as she found out her husband was terminally ill. The couple’s response was to start walking the 630-mile South West Path.BBC Three’s latest programme ‘Eating With My Ex’ brings together two young people who have broken up to discuss what went wrong in their relationship and why. Is there something to be learned from meeting up and speaking to an ex-partner? And what should you be thinking about before having this conversation? Jo Hemmings is a behavioural and relationships psychologist. Oloni is a sex and relationships blogger.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Helen FitzhenryInterviewed guest: Kat Cowan Interviewed guest: Raynor Winn Interviewed guest: Jo Hemmings Interviewed guest: Oloni

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. Thank you for downloading the Woman's Hour podcast from Monday 28th January 2019. And the early part of this podcast is all about feeding your baby, which is kind of our big topic of the week. We'll have a whole series of conversations about it through the course of the week, including a phone-in on Wednesday.

But all that you'll hear about in the radio programme. And then stick around if this is a topic of huge interest to you right now, because there's much more at the end of the podcast. We're talking feeding your baby on Woman's Hour this week. Whether you did it 25 years ago, 50 years ago, whether you're doing it now or you might be doing it, you will be doing it in a couple of weeks. We really want to get you involved in a conversation which is really going to be spread across the early part of this week, certainly, and I'm sure it will lead to all

sorts of emails and interjections from you on Instagram and on Twitter, at BBC Woman's Hour. That's where we're starting this week, and I'm going to introduce you to Kat Cowan, who's my colleague from BBC Radio Sheffield. Welcome to the programme. Thank you for having me. Now, Kat had a baby 10 months ago. I think it's fair to say it's still quite fresh in the memory. Indeed it is, yes. And I was very, very lucky with the birth.

I had him at home, which I'd planned to do very quickly. It was glorious. It's all you could hope for from the birth. And he was put on my chest and he immediately latched on. And that is what I've been planning to do. I've been planning to breastfeed. I'd gone to the antenatal classes with the specific breastfeeding session. I'd bought nursing bras and nipple cream and that kind of thing.

And so they put him on to me and it's this magical moment where he goes straight to the nipple and latched on and all the midwives said, hurrah, you've done a beautiful happy days happy days but i know this is where i must interject just to say that everybody's speaking on this subject and you're about to hear a whole range of voices everyone is speaking from the heart it's their personal experience if you've been through this i've i've got my personal story you'll have yours these are very real but very personal stories you're going to hear over the next 20 minutes or so. And we've already had a load of stuff from you on Instagram, particularly at BBC Women's Hour. If you don't follow us there, make sure you start doing it now. breastfeeding my one-year-old to sleep. What an emotional journey. We really struggled at first and I found it maddening how dogmatic the breastfeeding experts in hospital were,

even though they were all saying slightly different things. In the end, my local breastfeeding clinic did sort us right out after what she describes here as a fairly emotional 90-minute wait with my mum, sat in a room full of terrified-looking women with their boobs out. Thanks to that listener, thank you. But honestly, there will be so many people with very similar stories. It's so, so difficult to get this right, but don't be hard on yourself.

That's my overriding sentiment. Whatever you're doing, I'm sure you're doing the very best you can. So, Kat, back to you. Things were going initially really well. Seemed beautiful. Every time a midwife came round to my house, she would look at what I was doing and tell me that it looked fantastic. And obviously you can't, your breasts aren't see-through. You can't tell what's going in your your baby and it all seemed fine and then about five days after the birth so it had a bit of a sticky night on night three because that's often when

your milk hasn't quite come in and your baby's fat reserves have started to dwindle and he was crying and had this squirming baby um obviously in hindsight very hungry and not happy about that but i was told by the midwives that was totally normal um and still to just continue the breastfeeding and then we got to uh day five and at this stage he'd developed an infection around his belly button and his weight now had dropped two levels that they were not comfortable with so we went from home to hospital and we were in hospital for three days. And it was one of the most, the toughest experiences of my life.

I went in feeling relatively confident. And over the course of my time in hospital, I just felt my confidence was completely shattered. What was so difficult about it is you you mentioned the lady who you contacted on Instagram talking about getting slightly different advice. I would feel during the day, I'd have breastfeeding support workers and midwives coming in saying, you're doing a beautiful job, everything's fantastic. And then at night, I would have,

I remember a nurse coming in saying, well, this baby's starving. And then I think it was on the second night I was there, a midwife came in and said, look, we've got to get this baby on formula. We need to sort this out now. His weight is a problem. We need to act right now.

Was that the first time anybody mentioned bottle feeding to you? Yes. It'd never come up in my antenatal classes, in trips to the midwife when I was pregnant. Bottle feeding had not been a thing. I just need to mention, I think, that the Royal College of Midwives, people might remember a conversation that we had on Woman's Hour with them last year, they did change their stance in the summer of June 2018.

The decision of whether or not to breastfeed is a woman's choice and must be respected, the Royal College of Midwives has confirmed today as it publishes a new position statement on infant feeding. Breastfeed is a woman's choice and must be respected, the Royal College of Midwives has confirmed today, as it publishes a new position statement on infant feeding. This new statement recommends that balanced and relevant information be given to parents choosing to formula feed their babies, whether exclusively or partially, to allow them to do so safely and with support to encourage good bonding. The problem with that, I'm sure, well-intentioned message is that it doesn't always spread out to people doing the job on the front line, the people you were meeting, Kat. No, and I suppose also the word choice,

because the formula was only mentioned when things were really going awry with me. It didn't really feel, for me, that this was an issue of choice. It felt that this was a serious situation that I was in and I had to follow this this plan at the same time I would I remember one of the the support workers looking a bit confused when she'd seen formula on my tray that the next morning like why why has this been brought into the mix and so I just sort of sat there thinking well I don't don't know know whose advice I should be following. Either way, I felt like I was failing in some way.

If I follow the advice of this midwife and introduce formula, then I'm failing that person. And if I follow her, then I'm failing in the eyes of that midwife. What happened? So what happened was we finally discharged, his weight had gone up enough. And then I went on this kind of roller coaster of trying to reduce the formula. It went on for several weeks. And I was left at one point by the community midwife for a week. She said, you've been prodded and poked enough. I'm going to leave you for a week to reduce the

formula to try and increase your breast milk supply. And I will never forget the moment she opened the door and she saw Cooper, she hadn't seen him for a week, and the look on her face was very apparent that he'd lost a lot of weight. It was obvious to her. And she said to me, you've tried everything. You've done your best. You've been pumping.

You've tried to reduce formula. I think it's now clear you do not produce enough breast milk for your baby at which point I completely broke down and I said I'm a terrible mother and um she said to me she said you're not and I said well I failed I felt I failed on two levels I had failed because I couldn't produce enough milk for my for my son but also because I couldn't produce enough milk for my son. But also because I had been hell-bent on making that work, I felt I'd let him starve for a week. And it was just, it was really, really tough. We should say that he's fine. He is fine. He's huge.

He's all right. You're back at work. Your maternity leave is over. This is really, really very recent in your life experience. And it's important to say we are having further discussions on this throughout the week. There's a phone-in with BBC Radio Sheffield. And Paulette Edwards, who's their brilliant mid-morning presenter, will be with me on Wednesday morning as well. And we'll take calls from Sheffield and from regular Woman's Hour listeners as well. So really looking forward to that.

So we want your stories, your experiences and your questions actually on wednesday and tomorrow we'll reveal the results of a survey that we've commissioned alongside bbc radio sheffield about feeding babies about why parents make the decisions they do in terms of feeding so um let's get you involved on instagram and on twitter at bbc woman's hour if you have anything you want to share, you can do exactly that now. But Kat, you have been talking to a range of women from the Sheffield area. And again, I just want to emphasise, you're going to hear a different sort of experience from each woman. They are talking about what they have done and why they've done it. This is all deeply personal to them. So we're going to start with Natalie, who's 34. She's from Healy in Sheffield,

and she's got three children. She's breastfeeding two of them right now. Her youngest is 10 months old and her middle child, who is three. Her first, Elias, is now five. He was born after an emergency C-section, which left Natalie in shock. And he lost quite a lot of weight, actually, in his first couple of days. Breastfeeding got off to a bit of a shaky start, but advice to use a breast pump, in Natalie's case, made all the difference. I started to alternate having him on me, having a breast pump, having him on me, having the breast pump, and then the milk came, and then from that point it was totally fine.

It has been a very easy journey, it was just a very wobbly couple of days at the beginning. I fed him direct from the breast and always gave him a little top up afterwards with a syringe just because they taught me how to do that in hospital and for those first just few days that reassured me because I could see a little bit going in and I needed that I think at that time I think to be honest if I hadn't been able to breastfeed him after the birth I'd had I would have found it very difficult to find my identity as a mother and I think I could have really struggled mentally with that so I feel that the breastfeeding kind of saved me because after the birth I just looked at him and thought my body didn't do that because I wasn't involved

in that that was a surgical procedure and I felt very negative about it but then being able to breastfeed him I had all those lovely maternal feelings I could look at him and could see that he was mine and could see my body doing something positive for him, whereas I'd felt it failed him at the very beginning with the birth. So, yeah, I think it was fundamental to me in actually really loving those early days of motherhood. I really felt like I kind of found myself and it was a really positive experience. I just felt this amazing bond and this wave of love that I'd never known before. And I kind of found like, yeah, I'm a mum. I was meant to be a mum and this is amazing and he's amazing and I think breastfeeding was a massive part of that I would say it's a massive part of my life at the moment and a massive part of how I identify myself I

think as a mother I can't quite imagine not doing it I'm doing it right now um sometimes it drives me crazy it can be quite restrictive my social life has definitely taken a massive dip in the last few years. But I just feel it's so precious and magical and I really feel like it's something that is a brilliant gift I can give my kids, that I'm prepared to make any sacrifices for it. And actually, in the grand scheme of things, it is fleeting. They will grow up and they'll grow out of it

and then I'll be not breastfeeding anymore. It'll be very strange. Well, that's Natalie. She sounds absolutely happy as Larry and for her, it worked like a dream. It worked very, it was fairly straightforward. She had a few issues at the beginning. And then from there on in, it was quite straightforward. And it was then for her subsequent children, it just clicked.

And I found talking to her, it was just, it was so interesting how those kind of thoughts of guilt and failure, which I heard time and and time again when I talked to a lot of women she attributed them to her birth and it was actually the fact that she had a C-section which she was not planning and certainly didn't want and it was actually breastfeeding for her that she felt saved her psychologically

I found that fascinating It's a point of view clearly and it's her experience Siobhan on Twitter says really emotional listening to Kat's story as it brings back the fear and guilt and worry felt eight years ago in the same situation. I didn't produce enough milk,

so eventually gave top-ups with formula. Did the same with more recent babies, but with less guilt, says Siobhan. Thank you for that. And Suze, I breastfed my three, still feeding a two-year-old. I have loved it and hated it. It's been the best thing ever and the worst all at once. You, Kat, didn't fail. The support and information given to you failed. If mums could access support and understand how our bodies work, it would make such a difference. Right, let's hear our next mum, as I say, a whole range of experiences. And this is Rebecca, whose experience was very different. She's 35. She's from Sharrow in Sheffield.

She had an unplanned home birth, lost quite a bit of blood during labour, and she believes that had a serious impact on her ability to breastfeed, which she did really want to do. They kept putting her on me and kept putting my nipple to her and she would kind of sort of latch on and then everyone would be like, oh, that's great, and then she would suck a couple of times and then nothing. But I was really confident it would happen and so I just thought everything will be fine, it will sort itself out. We had to stay in overnight, wave my husband off, everything was

fine. And then she just absolutely refused to come anywhere near me. Various midwives were sort of putting her on me, seemed like she was feeding, but only for about 10 seconds. And then she would stop again. I was getting very confused about what was happening. So I was very stressed, very alone in a lot of pain. And it got to the point where I was just sobbing. But I've never felt as alone at that point. And she continued to refuse to feed. And then a health care support worker or somebody came and said, that's the sound of your baby starving. What are you going to do? And I said, what do you think I should do? And she said, oh, I can't tell you that you need to make a decision. So I'd slept for 48 hours and then at that point they said well you could give the child a cup of formula to keep her

going so we did that and then she fell asleep next morning as my husband arrived I was just there again holding the baby with various midwives with my boob trying to shove it in her mouth trying to get it to feed and it I just collapsed, basically. At this stage, all these midwives surrounding you, what did they say? A variety of things. That my latch wasn't right, that her mouth was too small, that there wasn't enough milk coming, that we needed to try and hand express.

At no point did anyone sit down and say to me, you've lost so much blood because you're hemorrhaged. That's potentially a reason why your milk isn't coming or you're not having anything at this point. So all throughout this, I just thought it was me not being able to do it. We eventually got private room because I just could not stay on that ward any longer on my own. The thought of another night, I've never been more scared of the thought of another night on my own in a ward trying to feed that baby so my husband and I and the baby were put into a private room and then we spent another two or three days there with so many different people trying to help but they were all completely different people who were giving

slightly different advice and it was all contradicting to some degree. I was just so confused. But I also was so tired and overwhelmed. And I just thought I just wasn't getting it. It happened a few times that they would come in and say, look, she's so hungry, she's starving. You're going to have to do a top-up feed. You're going to have to give a formula. But then I also had midwives saying,

we had someone in last week who was in for eight days and didn't leave until she'd established breastfeeding if that's what you need that's what you need but my husband had gone from being so evangelical about wanting the baby to be breastfed to within 24 hours saying this is not good for you it's not good for the baby and in the end my sister came at the same time as a an infant feeding support worker and they spoke with me about what did I actually want and I said I just want to be at home I need to be out of this hospital and they said well the only way you're going to be able to leave is if you say that you're going to bottle feed and then maybe try carry on with the breastfeeding

I felt elated to start with that I'd made a decision but then within half an hour just this huge sense of guilt and that I'd given up too early and shame even of how I was going to be viewed by other people by friends who had children that are breastfeeding them I just felt like a failure Failure, guilt, shame we do hear those words a great deal and women are just expert in

giving themselves a really hard time but it's the use of that word starving cat that is absolutely horrendous yeah i mean i i heard it um then when obviously when i was talking to rebecca i was when she said the very same thing had happened that she'd been told that her baby was starving and another one another of the women that I spoke to said something very very similar had happened to her you are an exposed nerve at that point and words like starving so emotive especially when in your mind and you're being told by other people that what you're doing is the absolute right thing so it's it's very disconcerting to being to be told you what you're doing is the absolute right thing. So it's very disconcerting to be told you what you're doing is right and at the same time told what you're doing is starving your child. It's very, very difficult.

There is a video of six of the mothers that we've been speaking to right now on the Woman's Hour website. It's really good. It's called Feeding Your Baby, Six New Mums on the Plan Versus the Reality. So go to bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour. You can watch that video right now. We've got another Rebecca. This is Rebecca who's 24. She's from Barnsley. Her son Jensen is one. She really wanted to breastfeed him, but soon into her pregnancy, she realised that couldn't be an option for her because of various medical conditions. I'm a type 1 diabetic, I'm epileptic so I was at the hospital every week and they said look what what was your decision on feeding so I said I really want to breastfeed

and they said unfortunately you can't if if it wasn't for my epilepsy, they'd be so up for it because it's so beneficial for my diabetes, it stabilises it. But because of the medication that I was stabilised on, they didn't want me to swap it and it could affect my son to be so drowsy, sedating. So they were just like, sorry but no. How did you feel when they told you that? I was so gutted. Really, really upset. They sat and talked to me about it and made me understand more of why I couldn't do it. But, you know, it's what I wanted to do and I had

to sort of change my plans then. And well before before I was born I went to um antenatal classes and it came one of the sessions was breastfeeding and they asked me why I chose to bottle feed and I said well it's not really a choice you know I've got to bottle feed because of my health and they were just like well can't you come off your medication just just stop it and you can breastfeed. I don't understand why you need to bottle feed. Who was this? Was this...? This was the woman who ran the classes that said,

well, why can't you stop? And how did that make you feel when she said that? I could have cried. I just felt so... Cos everyone else in the class were older mums as well, and I was the youngest, so that made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. And then the rest of the mums were breastfeeding so it felt a bit like everyone was looking down at me. She's only bottle feeding because she's young, she can't be bothered you know and I just I left, I didn't

go back after that session. That's Rebecca, I mean that is a miserable sounding experience for her, your heart goes out to her and Lizzie Twitter says, it's heartbreaking listening to this, bringing back so many memories. We fail women by both lack of infant feeding support and moralised, non-evidence based breastfeeding interventions. That's Lizzie's point of view. We need to be clear about Rebecca's situation? We need to be clear that she was given advice based on the specific medication she was taking for her epilepsy that that could cause issues for her baby and of course if you are in a situation where you are on medication you need to get advice from your doctor specific to the medication that you are taking

Okay loads of tweets coming in at BBC Women's Hour I'll do my best to keep up with the fair sprinkling of them but of course their podcast will be available later with more material in there as ever. Now, not all the women who switched to formula, either because they've had advice to do so or because they want to do so, feel quite the same as Rebecca. Nazneen ended up at the Sheffield Children's Hospital with her son because of his weight loss. We walked in and we went into the assessment area and I just burst into tears and I cried. And they were like, yeah, he's just hungry, you need to feed him. I'm like, no, really,

is he? I didn't know. Just cried a lot and went home. And then my mum marched me to the supermarket and bought me formula and made a bottle and sent me upstairs to have a bath and fed him. And that was that. How did you feel about the fact you were feeding him formula? That, actually, I didn't really care about. I just thought, he's feeding, he's got to be feeling better, he's got to put weight on, and he was jaundiced as well,

so that was fading. I just was like, why did no-one tell me? Why is this a secret? Why did no-one tell me that this was the best thing ever? And it really was the best thing ever. That's Nazneen, who fortunately had her mum. And there are actually times like that in your life when the one person you do want to see is your mum. She certainly came to the rescue there.

Now, what would you say about that, Kat? I found her attitude just wonderful. It was very heartening to speak to a woman who didn't mention the word guilt as many times as a lot of the other women and it was just wonderful I'd like to bottle some of her attitude and sell it. Okay we need to put the other point of view this is from Flora you do need to mention colostrum a milk doesn't come in straight after the birth yeah colostrum is the vital fluid that does i think come from the breasts straight after birth and then the milk comes in 48 hours or so something like that after the birth has taken

place um please be fair says flora in this email this is one-sided for those of us who've worked so hard to promote breastfeeding it's depressing hearing the voices you've chosen. Well, I need to emphasise that there's a phone-in on Wednesday, Flora. You're more than welcome to call. We've got breastfeeding experts on the programme tomorrow as well when we reveal the results of the survey that we've commissioned in conjunction with BBC Radio Sheffield. And this is not about breastfeeding.

This is about feeding your baby and why people make the decisions they do about how they're going to do it. Let's bring in the voice of Rizwana, who's 39. She's got a son who's two, who she's still breastfeeding. And it was clear that she'd been prepared for things to be rather different to how they turned out. I'm Indian and my family are Muslim.

And in our culture culture what happens is when you birth for 40 days it's seen a time for you and your child and you don't do anything but bond with your child and feed your child and everyone else does everything else around you and there is it just it's kind of social knowledge that breastfeeding is hard and people sometimes people can't do it and there's no shame in not being able to do it and you know I know a whole spectrum of people people who do mixed feeding people who do has done exclusive breastfeeding and people who've just gone for bottle because it's more convenient or they were moving house and there's no shame in saying that you know it's just like you're busy you have a

life you have other things you have other kids and you know having a child is just one thing that you're doing out of a whole host of things and life carries on and breastfeeding is just one way of feeding your child it's not seen as like the end of the world if you can't do it it's much more realistic and pragmatic attitude than I feel like in the west and so that's why I think there's less pressure it's definitely encouraged and it's definitely supported through family networks but there's also no guilt or shame if you can't do it either. And in some ways, it's a lot more respectful of female autonomy. That's the experience of Rizwana. And I think, again, just really important to say that we're not bigging up bottle feeding or breastfeeding or even combination feeding.

We're just outlining the range of experiences we've come across. And they are many and varied, as you'll hear throughout the course of the week. So tomorrow, Jenny's going to be unveiling the survey results. She'll speak to a GP, a young mother and a maternity matron from Liverpool Women's Hospital and a representative, too, from the National Breastfeeding Network. And on Wednesday, our phone-in in association with BBC Radio Sheffield. Don't forget our video on the website now, bbc.co.uk slash womanshour.

And Kat, you'll be back in the podcast. And we've had loads and loads of tweets and emails. So there's plenty to get through later on. So thank you very much. Thank you. And again, if you want to get involved, there's still loads of time at bbcwomanshour on Twitter for a quick pithy remark.

Email us if you've got something more you want to say. So are you aware, you might well be, of BBC Three's latest show, Eating With My Ex? The idea of this is to bring together two young people who've broken up to discuss what went wrong in their relationship and why. But we're asking this morning, is there anything to be learned, honestly, from meeting up with an ex and chatting to them?

Here's just a quick taster of the very first episode since we've split it's been quite hard for me because there's times where i feel like maybe there's a chance but i don't have any set expectations from this i just got a few questions to ask and I hope they're answered. Well with me now is Alonny the sex and relationships blogger welcome again good to see you and Jo Hemmings the behavioural and relationship psychologist. Okay Jo why do people feel the need to meet up with exes what is the point? Generally speaking they either want a bit of closure they haven't had. They're still angry, perhaps don't understand, confused.

Very often, it's that bit of old fashioned word, I suppose, melancholy. It's when you're feeling a bit vulnerable, a bit sad. And you have that sense that if you could just talk to your ex, there is some kind of reassurance or comfort there. And sometimes people genuinely want reconciliation but they don't always know that's what they want okay alani reassurance comfort definitely um i also think that most times when people are meeting up with their ex it's usually because they still want some part of them and they might be in denial about it i think some people cover it up with closure but i don't think think, I mean, speaking to lots of couples,

that it's ever helped or resolved a situation. You have done it, haven't you? I have. Take me through the first time. Because this is your, actually, it's not insignificant at all. This is your first big relationship, wasn't it? It was, yes. I was around the age of, yeah, I was 20.

And my ex had broken up with me. And we didn't talk for maybe a year or so. And he messaged me and asked if we could meet up and we did. And there was no emotions there anymore. But soon after he felt more comfortable with me. He then told me that he was actually gay, which I had no idea about. I didn't sense it not that you can sense it but I had there was nothing that made me feel that you know I'd need to question his sexuality

but um it did help our relationship in terms of friendship but of course it didn't lead to anything more because our sexualities were different you weren't going to get back together okay that much is clear which in a way at least leaves real clarity because here, actually, you'd acquired a really good friend and the sexual thing was done and dusted. Yeah. And so that worked out for you both. Definitely.

Do you think he felt guilt, though, about something that had happened? Clearly, he perhaps, when he was in the relationship with you, was beginning to think that he was actually gay and maybe he felt he'd let you down? I think he probably felt comfortable with me mostly because I talk about sex and relationships. And even after we had broken up, he still entered another straight relationship.

So I think it was more of we haven't spoken. He's always felt comfortable talking to me and he knows what I do for a living. So I think it was just that comfort really. But be honest, in that year or so where you hadn't spoken to him had he crossed your mind very much? Oh many times he had yes many times. So you missed him? I did definitely miss him I think he was like my first real boyfriend and there was just so many memories and you know times where you wish you could pick up the phone and just have a conversation and you just said I just said to myself you know

you're not together anymore so that can't happen. So have you now established a friendship? Oh, most definitely. We speak every now and then. And, you know, we have conversations whereby I ask him, when did you know you were gay? And, you know, he tried to form it as him being bisexual at first. And I was just like, no, just be honest. It's OK, you're gay. And I think it was just an experience for him and on his sexuality journey as well.

So I helped him in a way. I just wonder how much anybody wants to be an experience on somebody else's sexuality journey as well so um I helped him I just wonder how much anybody wants to be an experience on somebody else's sexuality journey I guess we all are yeah no definitely we definitely some of us are and I happen to be one of them I think you're being very philosophical about this what did you learn about yourself um what I learned about myself was that not everything, not every person you're in a relationship always has to be the person you're going to, of course, settle down with in the long run, because I really did believe that him and I were going to get married one day. So I guess that matured my thinking as well. And it was just an experience in terms of relationships. So regardless of him being gay, I think it was just an experience. OK, Jo, who can do the reconnecting? Is it the person who's done the dumping or the dumpee? Well, I think it's the person...

Because if you've been dumped, it feels a bit pathetic to make that... Well, we've all been there, to make that call a year or so later saying... But it very often is the person who's been dumped who does the reaching out if they do miss that person or if they do feel they're thinking about them so much the dumb the dumper if you like yeah will often reach out only out of perhaps guilt or a sense of responsibility that they want to find out how that person is that they've obviously hurt and make sure okay but usually it's the other way around it's a person who has been dumped that just thinks maybe there was something there maybe

they've changed their mind maybe they haven't moved on because those are the sort of mirroring the feelings that usually that person has themselves but are you not potentially bringing trouble on yourself by reconnecting with someone who may well have hurt you very much you're almost a hundred percent bringing trouble on yourself i mean very rarely, sadly pans out to be anything. And particularly in this day and age when we don't even ring up, we tend to sort of use our phone for messaging. Either you won't get a message back. And that's brutal. It's brutal. And there's no obligation for anyone to explain themselves to give you the closure you might want. I mean, it's a thoroughly miserable experience, I'm afraid, for most people who try and go down that route. The truth is, I guess a lot of people won't know why they broke up with someone.

They certainly can't put it into words, even if they do know. Absolutely. And if they do know, as you say, there's no reason why they should have to give that reason. And lots of people simply say, I just don't feel that way anymore. And they don't, you know, that's where ghosting comes from, if you like. People that just say, I can't put those feelings into words. I shouldn't have to explain myself, so I'll just close it down and not respond. Just define ghosting for anyone who hasn't been on the receiving end. OK, sorry.

So ghosting is when, you know, you're going out with somebody, you're in constant touch, you send them a message, then you hear nothing. You send them another message, try and ring them, again, hear nothing. So effectively, you've been ghosted, i.e. that person has just dropped out of your life without any need for further explanation. It is different for the younger generation, isn't it? I mean, I'll put that one to Joe first, and then you can take it up. It's a much tougher world, it seems to me. It's much tougher. It's much less straightforward. I mean, when when I was younger we didn't have these conversations I mean it wasn't kind of how they'd done it by text by phone I mean you you saw somebody we had

those sort of I don't know what's those rules where when you broke up with somebody um it was over you didn't then go pursuing your ex either because it was much harder to I mean unless you actually picked up a landline and rang them up, you weren't going to get through to them. So it's much easier now to find them on social media. Or to be haunted by them. Well, indeed. It's easier to find them.

Having a great time. Go on, Eleni. Yeah, I do agree with Jo. I think, well, my generation are very, they're very, they don't know how to treat people sometimes. So it's a weird thing to say, but we tend to be a bit disposable when it comes to how we see people on social media. When we're using things like Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, we just see them as an icon. We're not realising that there's a real person behind that.

So when we're having conversations, we're forgetting that that is a real person. So when we're falling off the face of the earth, we're not realising that that could actually potentially be harming someone in terms of ghosting. So, yeah. Right. OK. So in a nutshell, to reconnect or not, Jo, what is your expert advice on this? In that very little nutshell, not. Thank you. And Aloni? It really depends on the situation. Less than critical. So would. And Aloni? It really depends on the situation. Less equivocal.

So would you do it again? I definitely would do it again. I always tell people it really depends on the circumstances. Thank you both very much. Really enjoyed that. Thank you. And if you want to get involved on that one as well, of course you can. Perhaps you've reconnected with an ex and it went brilliantly well and maybe you did get back together and

you've never regretted it for a second. Let's be positive. For heaven's sake, it could happen. So at BBC Women's Hour on Instagram or on Twitter or email us as ever. Now, Raina Wynne is our next guest. Really interesting life story, really. Raina, good morning to you.

Let's see if she can... She's in our studio in... Good morning, Jane. You're in Truro, aren't you? I am, yes. It took a while to connect the wires between central, the bustling west end of London and Truro. But welcome to the programme. Your book is called The Salt Path and it's very critically acclaimed.

But it's essentially a wonderful story about a couple doing something they never thought they'd do for reasons they never thought they'd have to confront. You and your husband, Moth, walked the southwest coast path. doing something they never thought they'd do for reasons they never thought they'd have to confront. You and your husband, Moth, walked the southwest coast path, that's 630 miles of seaswept trail, hard to say, from Somerset to Dorset via Devon and Cornwall. So effectively, round the end of the boot of Britain, that's where you went, isn't it? That's right, yes. It's quite a long walk. Well, it's a very long walk

and there were complications because well, tell us first of all about Moth, your husband and his medical condition. Yes, he, before we started the walk, he was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease called CBD, corticobasal degeneration,

which is, it has no cure, it has no treatment, and essentially it's a terminal disease. Worse than that, well, not worse than that, how can it be worse than that, but alongside that, you lost your home. That's right, yes. It was not the best week of my life, I've got to say. You do come across in the book as remarkably circumspect. But anyway, go on. We'd had a long-running financial dispute with a friend

because it ended in a court case, which resulted in his being served with an eviction notice from our home. So it wasn't just our home, but it was our business as well. So faced with losing absolutely everything. And that was during the same week that Moth was diagnosed with the awful disease of CBD. Yeah, so it was, as I said, not the best week. No.

At which point you took the, well, some people would say, quite potty decision to go on this walk. Armed with what? What did you take with you? Yes, probably not everybody's decision to go on a walk, armed with what? What did you take with you? Yes, probably not everybody's decision to go on a walk like that. We made a rash decision to go and bought a tent off eBay and a couple of sleeping bags

from the local supermarket and off we went. But surely, Raina, friends, family, they must all have said just one thing to you. What are you playing at? friends, family, they must all have said just one thing to you. What are you playing at? Well, yes, they did, because it didn't really make sense, I've got to say. But I think we decided to walk on the moment when the bailiffs were knocking at the door and they were just about to change the locks and lock us out of our old life.

And we had nowhere to go. We've got no home to go to, nowhere to go. And in that moment, I spotted a book in a packing case, a book written, I'd read decades before, written by somebody who'd walked the South West Coast path with his dog. And just in that moment, it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. Just fill a rucksack and go for a walk. Well, I'll take your word for it. And the book is part memoir, part, obviously, a wonderfully effective guide to the South West Path and how

beautiful it is and the wonderful things you see and everything else, the birds, the wildlife, the gorse, your early morning trips to do your toileting business, which constantly are interrupted by early morning dog walkers. I think you say at one point that, you know, you just, what time do these people get up? Because they seem to get up very, very early indeed. What is it about dog walkers? I'm not sure. But it's also about homelessness, isn't it? It is, yes, because essentially we were homeless, although to us we were the same people, just without a home. But I think it sort of came to us quite quickly, quite early in the walk,

that our view of ourselves was not the same as other people's view. Well, tell me, because you would tell the truth in some cases when people asked you what you were up to, and people sort of shrank away, didn't they? That's right, yes. We'd pass people on the path and they'd stop and have a chat and we'd tell them we were walking a long way and obviously they'd say you know how come you've got so much time to walk so far and when we said well it's because we're homeless we've lost everything

we've got nowhere to go they would physically recoil draw their dog in on the retractable lead or gather their children. And that was such a shock to us because, as I said, to us, we were just the same people. Well, that is actually a really depressing picture of the way people look at, well, people who've fallen through the cracks, as you did. I mean, I think I've read that we're only ever, is it three bits of bad luck away from being homeless, all of us. Well, that's right. That's the statistic, isn't it? But I think quite an interesting point was in how we found people's reactions varied because quite hurt by the gap with reaction that we'd had.

We started to change our story. So when they said, how come you've got so much time? We would say, oh, well, we've sold our house. We're going where the wind blows. And then it would be sort of, oh, that's inspirational, fantastic. And it really was a shock to us, the preconceptions that so many people carry about homelessness and the prejudice that they have

for what they believe a homeless person is. It gave you a really quite unique insight, I would imagine. It did, yes, it did. You did winter inside, didn't you? We did, yes, yes. How did you do that? Yes, it had come to sort of mid-October and we were still in our ultra-lightweight sleeping bags,

which, if anybody's ever used one, it's because they've got no filling. That's why they're so lightweight. Right. And someone offered us a place to stay for the winter. They had a shed that was part converted, so we were going to go and help them finish that conversion and stay in their shed for the winter.

But you did complete the walk. You set off again when the weather got better. We did, yes. We went back to it the following year and we started at the end of the walk and aimed to walk back to where we'd finished the previous year. Now, I know, Moth, his health is not brilliant, but you and I think his doctors believe

it is better than it would have been had you not undertaken this incredible walk. That's right. Absolutely. He started out the walk in quite a difficult place. He was struggling to put his coat on without help. But we'd been walking for probably about 200 miles when we reached this cove where we camped for the night, well above the high tide line or so we thought. But at three in the morning when the water was only we camped for the night, well above the high tide line, or so we thought. But at three in the morning,

when the water was only a metre away from the tent, we had to grab the tent, fully erected, and run up the beach with it above our heads, splashing through the water. And we realised, as we dropped it at the foot of the cliffs, that he'd gone from, as I said, struggling to put his coat on, to being able to run up that beach. And that could only be down to the walk and the time that we spent in nature and the time spent walking.

Yours is honestly, genuinely an absolutely fascinating story. And I love the book. It's called The Salt Path. And very briefly, you are now where you are living. You have somewhere to live, don't you? That's right. Yes. Yes. Since the end of our walk, we've been living where the coast path passes the front door. So we walk on the path every day. Raina Wynne, who is the author of a book called The Salt Path, which was, well, I think it's really worth reading.

If you're a fan of walking, and I've become a bit of a walking obsessive with maturity, she said carefully. It's hugely helpful in terms of mental health and well-being, isn't it? So I think you'll really enjoy that book. And it was really interesting to talk to Raina. Now, really fantastic involvement from you this morning on the subject of feeding your baby. And Kat Cowan is still with me. Does it help to know, Kat? Because I know you actually did have,

in all honesty, a miserable time, actually, didn't you, to know that you've had a huge amount of support, that people are really saying, oh, thank God she said these things. This is why I wanted to do this. When I was on maternity leave and I was going through all of this and I was chatting to women and I started to realise that there were other women out there who'd had a really tough time. And when I returned to work, I thought,

if I can some way contribute to there being a conversation about this, an open, honest conversation about the reality for women, and they are very varied, the realities for different women, then that mattered. And when I was talking to women, I started to interview them, people generally, they were generally saying to me, I'm so glad you're talking about this because it feels like it's an area that when it goes wrong and it's not really wonderfully positive, that doesn't often get that much airtime. So I'm hoping that this helps women at least at the very least feel that they are not alone because it is such an isolating time um we have as you say um all sorts of different stories coming in this is from

one listener i think this is important actually i'm listening to your program breastfeeding my eight-month-old daughter breastfeeding has worked so well for us and i feel sad at the thought of feeding less when i go back to work in three, the biggest help for me has been having a WhatsApp group of women with similar age, breastfed babies and talking through problems with them. And I think that is really important. My eldest child is 19 and I wish I'd had a WhatsApp group to go to in the early hours of those mornings when you're just feeling, you just feel lonely, don't you? You feel so lonely. In fact, I spoke to a woman who has successfully breastfed and she had exactly the same WhatsApp group and they would post pictures of different sort of positions

and, you know, is this latch right? And that is obviously incredibly helpful. Yeah. Okay, let's have some more stories. My milk dried up after 24 hours of coming in. With my second child, my nipples bled and I couldn't bear the pain any longer. So after six weeks, she also went onto the bottle and I felt fine about it. They are 31 and 29 now and I've got grandchildren.

Breast is best, but if you can't do it for any reason, it's fine. Words of wisdom there from that listener. Another one. I breastfed both my children. It was agony the majority of the time. But family and societal expectations made me continue through the bleeding nipples and the searing pain for around five months both times. I counted down the days to reach a five-month target. I just couldn't.

I mean, but that. The targets are very interesting and that is something i've heard before i actually um spoke to a woman who's breastfeeding she's on the video actually on the website right she breastfed her her son and she's now got twins and um she breastfed her son for four months and her twins for two and a half months and she just really didn't enjoy the sensation of breastfeeding she didn't like it but she felt she couldn't because she was actually doing it successfully she felt like she couldn't admit it to anyone so her midwife would come around and say you're doing a brilliant job

well done you and she would go oh thank you lovely and then close the door and go I hate this but she just felt like she couldn't admit it I I do think it's good if you can get, rather than criticism or maybe even times being made to feel guilty by the health professionals, gentle encouragement, a bit of love would really work. I'm sure, I know a lot of people will say it's all very well for you to say that. You don't know anything about how underpaid and overworked these health professionals are and And I take it. I understand that there have been cutbacks

and it's not as easy as it should, perhaps it might have been. A few more experiences on Twitter. Lorna, I feel under enormous pressure to feed. I felt under enormous pressure to feed the first time I persisted and it all ended up okay. But I was desperate for somebody to give me permission to bottle feed. Lorna says, and I think this is important, we're all heroes in my eyes. Yeah, well, too right, because if men did this, believe me, there'd be medals given out.

My God, there'd be annual television award ceremonies. You can, I swear, that's what would happen. Zoe says, 11 years ago, I had premature twins and I was determined to breastfeed. It was hard work and I had a lot of sympathy from nurses and helpers, but little expertise. Trial and error and a severe lack of sleep. I eventually got there after many months. I do feel it was all worth the persistence involved, but unbelievable stress and hard work. From Christine on email, why are these lovely young women, these are the women you interviewed, using the word failure? In my view, a healthy baby, however they enter the world and however they're fed, plus a healthy mum, is a success and not

ever a failure. From Anna, my children are now eight and six and they're both healthy and well, born by C-section, had completely opposite starts when it comes to feeding. I feel sad when I hear people agonising about it. They'll be fine whatever you do and you have to do what your body and mind tell you. From Samara, I gave birth 10 weeks ago. Congratulations to you, Samara. And I'm currently breastfeeding my baby. We are now doing really well and have both learnt the technique but I'm not sure we'd have done so

well if we hadn't had so much support. That's true too. And actually what we haven't mentioned in all this because there's a limit to how much we can squeeze into the show is partners. Now, what would you say about your your husband my so my husband um obviously i think there's an element that they feel like spare wheels don't they they frankly um not that useful during the birth and then this the feeding well i mean he could have gone to the pub for all i cared uh during uh the

birth but um and and then afterwards, this happens and you don't understand it yourself, let alone they have no idea. And I remember with my husband at first, it was all very, you know, yeah, support you to breastfeed, I'll make you cups of tea and do this and that. But as I started to get more and more upset

and as the medical health professionals were telling me uh to to increase formula and the baby was losing weight he just couldn't understand why I was I think he saw it as flogging a dead horse to be honest he couldn't understand why I was putting myself through this and I remember crying and going but it feels so nice because I know it was a you weren't that convincing it was a particularly um uh it was a particularly low moment for me um because obviously it is also a hugely emotional thing and it's very difficult to explain that to your partner all he thought was baby needs feeding you're not doing you're not doing fabulously at that um formula will do that without any issues why aren't we doing that yeah which is i've got every sympathy for men in these

situations because it's not easy to be them uh and they isn't muddled by, if you can use that expression, by all those hormone things that are going on in you. What about the idea though for many men, I think they'd like to play more of an active part, they'd actually like to be able to feed. If you can express into a bottle then I guess that's one way of men getting involved in the feeding but as you say they can feel like real outsiders. Yes, and quite a few of the women I spoke to who had moved on to formula for whatever reason were glad in one aspect that they were able to involve their partners, you know, maybe split up the night feeds,

enabled them to leave the house without their baby and go somewhere. So I think the role of partners is an often forgotten part of the discussion around feeding babies. And also, I think we've got to be honest about this. Men, sometimes, and only some men, can feel somewhat territorial about their partner's breasts. Is that unfair? I think it's unfair. what territorial about their partner's breasts is that unfair i i i think i'm talking about months months on end um yeah the breast being occupied no i think that can be an issue particularly when it goes on past the point of well for a long long time i think that does happen and in fact

actually one of the women i spoke to said that she personally felt, you know, my breasts. That she'd had enough. I didn't want them to be about this anymore. Yeah. And I think that would be a sentiment that a lot of women will understand. Because, how can I phrase this? It's quite basic, isn't it? You suddenly realise, you're never more aware of the fact that you're, well, that we're mammals.

Yes. When you're sitting more aware of the fact that you're, well, that we're mammals. Yes. Than when you're sitting there. And there you are. That's what you're there. It turns out that's what they were there for all along. Who knew? Who knew? Except everybody essentially should know.

But we tend to forget. Anyway, this is a big, big subject. And I'd like to thank everyone who got involved. And for people saying we're it's there's an anti-breastfeeding vibe of course the truth is that if you've had a positive experience of anything I guess you're unlikely to get in touch you're and also yeah you're unlikely you're less likely to get in touch if you've had a a positive experience I think the thing is we can learn from both positive and and less positive experiences All I am hoping for this is that we hear and listen to women.

And if there are women repeatedly saying that they felt guilty and failures, I think we need to question why that is. And if there's anything that we could possibly do to help women feel less awful, I don't think anyone can argue with that. I couldn't agree more. When we're talking about women being enabled to feel less awful, when they've just given birth, you've done something truly brilliant. And you're laid low. Yeah. But I mean, it's just no justice. It's just wrong. Kat, thank you so much for being part of this

programme. Thank you. You've been absolutely brilliant. And tomorrow, Jenny will go through the results of our survey And then the phone-in is on Wednesday It's 1994 And two pop stars are flying to a remote Scottish island Is your seatbelt on, Jimmy? With two suitcases

Yes Each containing half a million pounds Do not think what you pull around yourself And it looks like it's fastened They're about to do something really stupid Shall I take your suitcases? Or really clever? No!

You decide. This is the story of two men who burned a million pounds of their own money. Why? Why would you do that? How to Burn a Million Quid by Sean Grundy and Cara Jennings. Download the free BBC Sounds app and subscribe or visit bbc.co.uk slash sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in.

Available now.