Woman's Hour - Nurses, Dreams, Deborah Feldman, Why babies laugh

Episode Date: May 2, 2020

Alison White's memoir Letter to Louis about raising a child with cerebral palsy and learning disabilities was the subject of the Woman's Hour drama. Jenni spoke to Alison and Louis. She also heard from Edel Harris, chief executive of Mencap about life during lockdown for adults with learning disabilities and their carers. Rachel Winterflood, a critical care nurse; “Mary” who works as a nurse in ICU and Jessica Sainsbury, a student nurse who has opted to finish her training with clinical practice discuss their experiences and concerns working on the frontline.The psychologist Caspar Addyman on his new book The Laughing Baby, which is all about the science of why babies laugh.The Netflix series Unorthodox tells the story of a teenager who flees her ultra Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community and an arranged marriage in New York, for a new life in Berlin. The four part drama series is inspired by Deborah Feldman’s 2012 autobiography Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.British Indian cook Asma Khan has only ever employed women in her restaurant kitchen since she founded Darjeeling Express in 2015. Forced to close in March, she tells Jenni how she is looking after her staff now, and what she’s been cooking at home during Ramadan.Some people are experiencing fitful nights in lockdown, with a number of social media users reporting unusually vivid dreams. What is the science behind dreaming? Dr. Megan Crawford from the Sleep Research Unit at Strathclyde University, and the psychotherapist Lucy Beresford discuss.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Dianne McGregor

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. This week, is it true? Are we all dreaming more or dreaming differently in the lockdown? I'm seeing lots of people dreaming about washing, hand washing, as you can imagine, clearing out cupboards, getting rid of dirt. Lots of people dreaming about an ex.

So lots of quite erotically charged dreams and also lots of dreams of frustration. Well, you could knock me down with a feather when she mentioned frustration. There'll be more on that later in the programme. Also, Deborah Feldman, who left her ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in New York. Her story is the basis of the very successful Netflix series Unorthodox. She's on the programme this weekend. We have just lots of babies laughing and we talk about laughing babies. What could be nicer than that?

And you can hear, too, from Asma Khan, whose restaurant employed only women. It's had to close down. So Jenny asked her how she's looking after her staff and what she's cooking at home during the lockdown. You can hear from her as well. First this afternoon, the Prime Minister said on Thursday in his press conference that we are past the peak and on the downward slope.

But we, of course, need to emphasise that the number of people who died with coronavirus in the UK as of Thursday was over 26,000. On Friday morning's edition of Woman's Hour, I talked to three serving nurses, to Jessica Sainsbury, who's a final year student nurse currently in mental health, to Rachel Winterflood, a critical care nurse working in the Midlands, and to Mary, also in critical care in the south of England. And Mary is originally from Sierra Leone. I asked Rachel, who'd only qualified in October, how hard it is to be working now

and helping to train other, more experienced colleagues to do her job. As a trust, we're bringing people in from theatres because obviously a lot of operations have been cancelled or delayed. So we're bringing people in from theatres because obviously a lot of operations have been cancelled or delayed. So we're bringing people in from theatre, from outpatients. And my heart really goes out to them, really, because it wasn't a choice that they came into critical care. And yeah, we've been training them up. They've all been brilliant and really positive. Obviously, it's been thrown in at the deep end. And with only seven months experience

I've been trying to help them along with as much as I know to try and get them happy and comfortable in the critical care environment which is very different to the ward environment that I think they're used to. How does it differ from a more traditional form of nursing? Okay so in critical care we're basically normally one-on-one or two-on-one on patients. So we're basically dealing with people that have organ failure, either single or multiple, and just need round-the-clock support to try and get them better and to fix them really. It is very intense, as it is in the name, and it is critical, but we have good stories and we have bad stories,

but we all band together as a team to do our best for that person and that individual. Mary, who's been working in the south of England. Mary, you've worked around the NHS for nearly 20 years. But even with your experience, I wonder whether you were in any way prepared for the last couple of weeks of your working life. This past couple of weeks, it's been much control but initially it was chaos. We didn't have equipment, we didn't have senior support, we were very short staff and so it was really unbelievable and the junior staff were working hard and we were really not knowing what the outcome would be for patients and we did see so many patients and at what particular time very

unwell, very unstable, very sick. In my 17 years of being in ITU working as an intensive care nurse. I've never seen this. I've never seen this. And I remember coming home and not sleeping properly, thinking, what's happening? How far will this go? What support are we going to have? But thankfully, as I said, in these past few weeks now, it's been much control. We're having lots of support from our leaders. We've got PPEs that are much, much comfortable. They're not sweaty. You don't feel dehydrated

and tired and thirsty. And it's a lot better. We hope it continues. You mentioned that initially you didn't have the right sort of protection. How long were you working without it, Mary? I would say for the first couple of weeks when this crisis started, I looked after a few patients that had COVID. I didn't even have masks. And these patients were not intubated initially, so they were coughing. We had to put them on what we call CPAP because we're trying to prevent intubation and we're using high flow oxygen equipment. And these patients are coughing. And so we are around their vicinity. So we didn't have any equipment at all. The only equipment we had was our ordinary aprons and gloves that we had, which we use for attending to patients. Now, I know that, Mary, you are originally from Sierra Leone, and you'll be aware that,

as reported by the Health Service Journal, as of the 22nd of April, 71% of the nurses who have died from COVID in the UK were from a BAME background, but BAME staff only make up 20% of the workforce. Does that really concern you as you go into work? It does really concern me because we are most of the time the nurses on the shop floor. Most of the BAME staff are the staff that are junior members of staff at the shop floor with the patient, not in many management positions. So it does affect us. And now we're having emails about risk assessment. We've never had any risk assessment initially to say, what is your risk? What you need to do?

And even with the fitting of mask, I've never been fitted with mask to see whether I've got complete protection. So I'm just going there, put the mask on, hoping that pray that I don't get infected. And my worried also coming home, I'm trying to isolate myself from my daughters. So if I do get infected, I'm not passing it on to them. Yeah, we need to remember, don't we, that our nursing staff do have lives. They do go home to their houses and flats. And you've got people to care for there who are dependent on you. I also gather that you've struggled to do your shopping over recent weeks. Oh yes, as I said, initially when we start having patients with COVID, we're just walking, walking in and out of hospital, coming, rest and go back and then I went to the shop, there was nothing there for me to get and I was

really frightened then. I wasn't initially frightened about looking after the COVID patient. It's when I went to the supermarket to do my my my weekly shopping and there was nothing for me to get. And I was really I thought like it's like in a war zone. We're going to be starving. There's nothing here to get. I was really scared. That's when it really sinking to say this is get. I was really scared. That's when it really came to say, this is serious, this is really bad. Mary, thank you very much. Jessica Sainsbury is on the Students' Committee, the head of it actually, at the Royal College of Nursing, final year student nurse. Jessica, what are

you actually doing at the moment in terms of your work? We were given the option whether we could opt in to change the end of our nursing education programme so that we finished it out in practice. So due to my health and my own health, that was the best option for me personally. And I was also very acutely aware of, you know, the staff shortages in the NHS. So I felt that I had to go in and do my bit, really. So what are you doing? So I am based with a mental health crisis team, which is community-based.

I am studying to be a physical health nurse as well as a mental health nurse, so I'll have two registrations. And I was just very keen to help out with the mental health front line because although we're not in your traditional front line we are still very much operating and seeing people who could potentially be positive with the virus and we still need to look after people's mental health as well. And to what degree are the patients you're seeing impacted by everything else that's going on around all of us at the moment? This is an anxious time to put it

mildly. Yeah it's definitely something that is on our client group's mind as well to the point where a lot of people who would normally be using this service are avoiding it obviously i can't comment on behalf of all of our clients but it has been something that people are wary of and they may not want nurses coming into their homes due to the virus they're also not willing to to come to us either which is quite concerning because these people need the interventions that we're able to offer but they're avoiding it due to the virus. Thank you very much Jessica. Rachel I was really struck by the passionate tone of the email that you sent to our programme. You talk about noses red, bleeding and blistering, hands cracked,

appetites gone because of how restrictive and claustrophobic the masks are and you also say I love my job but I and I chose it. I bloody fought for it, in fact, but I didn't choose to go to work every single day and risk my life and watch my colleagues risk theirs. I didn't choose to have to isolate from my family either. None of us have chosen this. And you plead with the public and say your job right now, and I'm pleading with every one of you, is to follow the guidelines set out for you. What is it you've seen, Rachel, that has angered you so much? I think it's just really hard when I go to work.

I live in Telford and I travel to Birmingham. That's obviously my choice to commute in. The amount of traffic over the last few days has just been unreal. The amount of people just in cars just driving around and just walking really close to you in corridors and in streets and just not really thinking about what risk they can have and I think it's just frustrating especially as nurses it might not be yourself that gets COVID or suffers with COVID and if you're blessed it won't be your loved ones either.

But I think it's the fact that we need to have the responsibility as a country to protect everyone. I mean, as nurses, the ability to care and think about the well-being of someone we don't even know is something we just do every day. That is our job. And I think it's just trying to get everyone to think about the greater good, really. And we need your help to be able to do that.

So we don't have, obviously, a potential second wave. We've got a lot more in place than we did at the start. I was really lucky. We all were fit tested for masks and all had our masks before this crisis started. Because in critical care, we do deal with infectious diseases sometimes. That is something that happens. So our trust, we're on top of that, luckily. But when you hear the Prime Minister say we're past the peak and on the downward slope,

what was your reaction to that? It was hard to hear. I think he needed to be a little bit more clearer. At the moment, we still need to have that responsibility and still need to keep the social distancing in place. It's a big concern that obviously if we come out of this lockdown that sometimes is being adhered to and sometimes isn't it's obviously clearly helped with the numbers hence why the numbers are going down but i think our big concern is if everyone just goes out and carries on as normal and maybe forgets how they

should be acting we're just going to have another wave and it's just going to hit us harder yes we might be more prepared but there's still a limit to beds and space that everyone has throughout the country. And I think we just need to think a bit outside the box and about other people other than ourselves. I think in the interest of transparency, I need to say that I am a non-executive director of an NHS trust. But Rachel, it's worth bearing in mind that if people had seen what you've seen over the last couple of weeks they would not be approaching this with any sort of light-heartedness this weekend would they they'd still continue to take everything very seriously exactly and i think it's to take this time at the

moment and i know it's been said before but to hold your loved ones close, to call them if you can't see them and make sure you love them completely and cherish them. Because at the hospital at the moment, we're not allowed to have families in, obviously, in people's last moments. And that's the hardest thing for me personally and I think my colleagues to deal with. And I think we all need to think, yes, it would be nice to be able to go for a walk or to go walking in the Lake District, but at the moment I'd rather have my family sat next to me, healthy and well. An important message from a critical care nurse, Rachel Winterflood, who was on Friday's edition of Woman's Hour. We also heard in that conversation from Jessica Sainsbury and from Mary,

that isn't her real name, but she is working in critical care in the south of England at the moment. Now, the psychologist Caspar Adiman has a new book out called The Laughing Baby, which was all the impetus we needed to do an item about babies laughing, why they do it, what makes them do it. I asked Caspar whether all babies laugh and when do they start laughing? Pretty much every baby. They're practising already in the womb, but the first real laughs are around three to five months. I see. Practising in the womb? Yes, ultrasounds have shown things which look a bit like laughter already in the womb.

But what might make an as-yet-to-be-born baby laugh? It's just a natural response. I mean, it's something that's already built in, like hiccups when they're hiccuping in the womb. Is it actually just wind, Caspar, if we're honest? No. That's what people say about the very first smiles, and those are definitely not trapped wind. I've asked lots of parents.

They know their babies better than anyone else, and when they say this was a real smile of satisfaction, I'm going to believe them over an old wives tale. Let's cut to the chase then. Let's just hear some babies laughing. Chris Baker is a listener. He uses this recording of his grandson laughing as his ringtone because it makes him smile. That is fantastic. And there are more coming, that's the good news. Is it fair to say, Casper, that laughing and smiles from babies are nature's way of rewarding the hard labour of parents, particularly mothers? Yes. It's a way of keeping you engaged with what they're doing.

I like to think of it as the opposite of babies crying. That's a very clear signal that they want something to stop. Laughter is their way of making you carry on with whatever's going on right at that moment yeah um but what might make a baby laugh in terms of physical sensations which are the ones that get the babies going well more than anything else um tickling is like like the winner there. That's actually a really ancient thing. Lots of mammals respond to tickling. It's probably been around for millions

and millions of years. I'm not ticklish now. Would I have been ticklish as a baby? Are all babies ticklish? We're investigating that at the moment. It seems like most babies are ticklish and they almost all enjoy it. It's just something that people grow out of, weirdly.

Really? That's astonishing, isn't it? I think there needs to be more research on that. Charles Darwin, is it true that he used to go around tickling babies with his beard? So there is a wonderful article Darwin wrote about babies, and in that he was doing little experiments with his own children, and he said that when tickled, a baby will respond with laughter, unless it's by a strange man. And so I just have this vision of Darwin going up to prams in the parks, trying this out.

Yeah, well, of course, at the moment, that would be inappropriate on absolutely every level. So if there are any would-be Charles Darwins out there, social distancing, please bear it in mind. I cannot imagine, I've always wondered what it might be like to have twins. Here are some wonderful twin giggles from ten-month-old twins Fred and Billy. That is absolutely brilliant. What sort of research has been done, Casper, on twins and laughing?

Very little, actually. Most laughter is looked at with parents. I did have one. I had asked lots of parents how many times a baby laughed in a day. I had a parent of twins in Colombia who actually counted. She got up to about 500 laughs in one day between them and then she sort of, she gave up. What? 500? Yeah. 500 separate incidents of laughter? Between the two twins, yes. Yeah, I mean, I've sort of heard anecdotally that twins, when one cries, the other might start around the same time or perhaps even worse, leave it until one's finished and then start crying. What actually, I mean, is there a similarity between laughter and tears in this respect? I think it's going to be something they share.

Absolutely, yes. I think it's going to be something they share absolutely yes we as adults we laugh really much with our best friends and who could be a better friend in the whole world than your twin yeah of course that does sound amazing this is another one this is more sophisticated in a way it's from Noor

who is 16 months and Noor is giggling because her mum is pretending to fall off a chair. Here we go. Now, Noor is probably highly intelligent. She's a Radio 4 listener. But how does she know that that sort of physical humour is funny? Why is she laughing?

I think even at that age, she knows that her mum is doing it as a joke. Actually, Freud thought otherwise. He thought that babies, when somebody fell over, they had a sense of superiority, that, ha-ha, that wasn't me. But our research says that that's just not true. It's only when it's kind of in this safe, like, clowning type way that they're going to laugh. So babies are sophisticated enough to know that it's only pretend?

Yes, absolutely. Right. Trust Freud to be a bit of a killjoy and to find a negative in all that. But he did anyway. Is there anything very strange you found that has made a baby laugh? One of the strangest, and you might have seen this in YouTube videos, is babies that respond to tearing paper. First, that seemed like just another weird thing. And then more and more people started doing it and more and more babies were laughing at it. And I still have absolutely no idea why. Well, we had an email from a listener called Bev who said her daughter used to laugh at the cooker all the time. And we've no idea why, she said.

It might have been it wasn't your cooking, Bev. It was the cooker that the baby was laughing at. Let's end with Diana's grandson, Charlie, who is catching a softball. Now, he is now 10, but she says she still plays it every day as it never fails to make her laugh out loud. Well, make your own mind up. Here is Charlie.

Charlie. That was absolutely incredible um casper is there any way that you can keep on repeating the same gag or do babies and toddlers like the rest of us tire of jokes after a while um well if you think about peekaboo which is the ultimate in baby laughter um they they're gonna keep laughing to keep you playing at a certain point so um point so what they really crave more than anything else in all of this is your attention and so as long as you're giving them real attention they're going to keep rewarding you with laughter

It is hard to pick a favourite obviously but if I had to you've got to give it to Charlie haven't you but you will maybe disagree with that maybe you have an even more hearty laughing baby you could ping over to us. We've decided, just in the spirit of the thing, to have a baby of the day all next week on Woman's Hour. So this is your opportunity.

Imagine the joy it would bring to a child. For decades ahead, you could point back to the fact that they were once baby of the day on Woman's Hour in 2020. So email the programme via the website bbc.co.uk slash Woman's Hour and we'd just like some audio of them laughing if you can. Now it's a rare thing for me, I've actually finished a series on Netflix partly because there are only four parts to Unorthodox. I do find the really long ones slightly off-putting. Unorthodox is brilliant. It's the story of Esty Shapiro, a teenager raised in an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Satmar Jewish

community in Williamsburg in Brooklyn in New York. Now, Esty escapes her arranged marriage for a much freer life, obviously, in Berlin. Her story is based on a memoir written by Deborah Feldman, published in 2012, and called Unorthodox, The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. How different were the lives of women and men growing up in the community? Here's Deborah. This sect believes that the only way to prevent another Holocaust

from happening again is to take all Jewish rituals and traditions and to interpret them in new and extreme ways. And so obviously you had gender segregation before, but gender segregation has become extremely interpreted in the community. And you have previous rules of modesty that are being reinterpreted. For example, before women had to just cover their hair, within the Satmar community, women have their heads shaved. And that is just one example of how traditions are interpreted in this is such an extreme way that they become distorted and unrecognizable. So for me as a woman growing up in the Satmar sect, being raised by Holocaust survivors, being raised by a community of survivors, we really believed that we had to follow all

these rules the way that the rabbi had laid them out for us in order to save the Jewish people and to prevent the worst from reoccurring. And there's just this tremendous feeling of responsibility and pressure. And every time something bad would happen, the rabbis would explain to us that the reason bad things were happening in the world is because our stockings were too thin or our skirts were too short. And when you have the coronavirus crisis happening right now, you can see placards hanging in these communities where women are being told because they are immodest, we have to deal with the crisis of the coronavirus. So there was always this direct connection between, you know, our day to day lives, things that felt trivial and almost, you know, insignificant. We were being told, you know, our whole future would be hanging in the balance based on whether we were putting on thick enough stockings. Now, you were married at 17, as those of us who've seen in the

series, a similar sort of age. What was expected of a young wife? Well, certainly it was expected that I get pregnant as soon as possible and that I continue to get pregnant. You know, I received birth control only one time in my life before my wedding. And the reason for that was we needed to control my cycle just long enough so that I would be pure in my wedding night to avoid menstruation on the wedding night because the wedding is planned so far in advance that it's just very risky. What if you're menstruating at the same time? So I received birth control once. I took it a month before my wedding and then I went off it as soon as I got married, and I wasn't allowed to use it again. I ended up getting access to birth control through my doctor in secret after the birth of my first child,

because I knew that my chances were slim anyway. I had already thought I wanted to leave, and I was planning to leave. And I knew that my chances were slim with one child, but I knew they would go over to absolutely impossible with more than one. In the series, Deborah, we see Esty having terrible difficulties engaging in sex with her husband and another woman comes to offer advice. How true to your life is that part of the series? Very true. I mean, I would say it's the essence of my book and it is, you know, it is the turning point of my life story. And I think it is at the heart of the story. It's certainly the first thing I wrote, the first piece of writing that I ever accomplished was writing about this part of my life. You know, I grew up with tremendous bodily repression. You know, the female body is considered the source of all sin where I come from.

And we grow up only learning to deny it, ignore it, and cover it. And then all of a sudden, right before you get married, you go to these classes and these marriage teachers tell you, oh, well, your body is also holy and it's also supposed to be used for something very holy, reproduction. And this is just a tremendous contradiction. And vaginismus, which is the condition that I had, is very common in religious communities all over the world because it is a very natural consequence of repression. You know, if you tell your body your whole life that your body is bad and that your body needs to be repressed or covered up, your body absorbs that message. And it has a psychosomatic effect on your actual muscle memory. And so it was just impossible for me to go from my body is evil,

or my body is the source of all evil, to suddenly, my body is the source of everything holy. And this is why it took me one year to consummate my marriage. And when I did, it was very painful, but I got pregnant immediately. And at what point, Deborah, did you decide you had to make what you describe as a scandalous rejection of your Hasidic roots? Well, I just want to put a disclaimer out there that I didn't choose that title. I think that publisher made a decision when we were putting the book on the market to have that subtitle, partly because at the time, nobody knew anything about this community,

and we were essentially worried that people would not know how to react to a book like this or to even know if they would be interested. I mean, there was a real concern that the story was too niche to find an audience. And I think my publisher at the time did everything to reach as big an audience as possible. And it did do that. And, you know, that is a result of so many things, so much of that has to do with our Zeitgeist, and we see that with the series. But, you know, the scandalous rejection, which is scandalous, probably for different reasons than we would assume. You know, I think there's something in the series that is very similar. You have this moment where Esty

realizes she's pregnant. And she realizes that on the one hand, it's everything she wanted. But on the other hand, it's all wrong. And that was the same for me. But the difference is I couldn't leave the next day. I kind of sat through the pregnancy and thought, oh my God, how do I get out? It's too late. It's too late. And then I gave birth to my son. And in that first hour when I was lying in the hospital bed holding him in my arms, I was like, no, I'm going. And it was just something I knew in my body was like this really sudden maternal sense of certainty. And then I spent three years planning that exit, preparing for that exit.

I saved money. I made friends. I visited a lawyer. I found an apartment. Like, you know, it was a slow process. And even when I had everything mined up, I was still too afraid to take that last step. It took a life-threatening car accident

for me to realize life is short. You know, it's now or never. And I left the next morning. And now you're living in Berlin with your son. How much does your faith matter to you now? You know, very little. I would say that my understanding of faith today is not very religious in that sense. I think we can have faith in ourselves. We can have faith in mankind. You know, you can have faith in the future. But I wouldn't say that I have faith in a God per se. I don't spend much of my life thinking about if there is a God, what is he like? I try to live a life that feels

authentic to me and to sort of my own inner values. And, you know, I've given my son all the options. My son is 14 now, and he's been introduced to all sorts of belief systems and value systems. And, you know, I've always communicated to him that he will always be free to choose his own belief system, and I will never force mine onto him, because that is essentially what I was fighting for, not for him to be raised another way, but for him to be raised with choices. The author Deborah Feldman, and the show on Netflix is called Unorthodox, so I can really recommend it. Now, if you listen to this week's Woman's Hour serial, you'll be familiar with Alison White's Letter to Louis,

which is the story of the birth of her first child, Louis, back in 1996. He was delivered by an emergency caesarean section at 32 weeks and had severe brain damage because she had preeclampsia, which hadn't been diagnosed in time. Louis has cerebral palsy and learning difficulties. He's now 23. And this week, he spoke to Jenny with his mum from their home in Pembrokeshire. Alison talked about their life together before lockdown. Before the lockdown started, we had just got to the place we'd been wanting to get to, I suppose, for a very long time.

Louis had just managed to get a care package for 24-hour supported living in his own home and he was having an absolutely wonderful time. We'd been setting up all the care that he needed and training all the staff. How difficult was it to cope when the uncertainty of the virus began? It was, I'm sure so many, everyone must have been feeling this in their own way. It was completely terrifying, really, because I was watching events unfold, seeing what was happening in Italy and China, wondering what on earth we were going to do and how soon it was going to get to us

and thinking about how to keep Louis safe, really, and looking at what our situation was and what Louis' needs were and how to do it. Because Louis has, and he did have, ten carers on him that would alternate every eight hours over the space of the seven days of the week and I was realizing that that was going to be too risky you know for the risk of bringing the virus in so each day things were changing weren't they we were reducing the numbers down and it just

reached a point where we thought actually we've got to really condense it. We'd gone from 10 to 8 to 4. And this was all before the government was giving out definite advice. And then there was a point when two carers very kindly, Ollie and Maya, offered to take on the full caring role for a period of time with myself being able to offer support as well. So how are you managing now? I mean we're several weeks into the lockdown now how is it going? It's no it's going it's going as well as it could I would say and I think the reason for that is because we've been so fortunate with the care that we've been offered and the care providers that we have and that I do have care I'm very very aware that this time last year I wouldn't have had any of this and then I

would be having to do everything and that would be completely different so the fact that I do have this support network and we've been doing a lot of reassuring with louis haven't we louis about things because he's had to adjust to big big changes to his routine and all the things that he really enjoys doing let me ask louis louis how are how are you doing with all these changes that have happened how are you managing he's been doing so well with the changes, haven't you, Louis? We've been... Yeah, we've been telling you how well you're coping. Yeah, I don't know, do you want to tell Jenny anything else?

I know. How are you? I'm very well, Louis. How are you? Brilliant. He's got a very positive outlook, haven't you as well, Louis? Yes. So, Louis, can you tell me how you're spending your days at the moment when practically the whole country is just staying at home all the time? I am. I am chilling at home and I am going for two walks a day, yeah. And Louis is very happy about that detail because the government has changed it, haven't they, Louis? Which has enabled him to have more than one walk, which was causing him a lot of distress.

And now he's able to go out more because of his needs so lou you like you like walking do you yes a lot and i am wondering when this lot doesn't be lifted and but all but normal alison who cares for you during all these worries and anxieties that you've had? Oh, well, I suppose family and friends, you know, I can turn to and talk to, and they are very supportive. But that's that mothering role, isn't it? You cope as long as your children are fine and are coping, focusing on that. What's going to happen when the lockdown is lifted? How will you cope then? I don't know the answer to that question yet, because I think what I've been having to do

at the moment is take things day by day and assess the situation the most important thing is that the care provision for louis continues you know i have fears about what's happening with the economy and what that will mean for care and um i suppose we very much want there to be a vaccine one day um how to keep him safe when the lockdown lifts but keeping the social distances i don't know it's a bit of a minefield isn't it i know i don't know the answer to that question allison and louis white talking to jenny here now is adele harris who's the chief executive of mencap i share allison's worries about the economy and the impact that will have on social care. Their story is quite typical.

It's important, of course, to stress that everybody with a learning disability is a unique individual. And we're all going through a really difficult and anxious time at the moment, but it's society's most vulnerable that are hit the hardest. And Alison's story and Louis' story is very typical of what Mencap is hearing and what we're experiencing via our helpline, our online community, our local groups and through our own supported living services. It's very hard for people with a learning disability to make sense of the world sometimes anyway. Many of them, as Louis does, really appreciate having routine and that's been taken

away from them. Some people with a learning disability have high anxiety and that's exacerbated at the moment. And of course, during a lockdown, access to services such as day centres and respite, supported employment, all of these things have stopped. And we're seeing, in some cases, higher instances of challenging behaviour as a result. So how difficult is it for people who've had to return to elderly parents because their care has had to stop? Yes, we're seeing that in a number of cases because there is pressure on social care at the moment. There are many care workers who are shielding or self-isolating, which obviously results in staff shortages. And so there are a number of people with a learning disability who were living with care in the community and who have had to return to their

families and of course in many cases that's older carers who have their own concerns as parents about becoming ill and what would happen if they become ill and it's putting pressure on family carers because obviously they're not used to having their loved one at home all of the time. So we are hearing of many carers who are struggling and who are needing additional support at this time. I know there has been some extra anxiety caused by some people with learning disabilities being sent do not resuscitate letters. What's happening on that question yes when the pandemic first hit us all um mencap and other disability charities were very concerned about a number of things really one was about the original clinical guidance that was produced

which in our view wrongly completed having support needs with frailty and the blanket use of sending people with a learning disability and other vulnerable groups do not attempt resuscitation letters seeking their views and their families' views on what would happen if they became ill with the virus. I'm pleased to say that the clinical guidance was changed and NHS England have been really, really categorically clear that people with a disability should have the same access to healthcare as everyone else in the community. And there's also some fear and anxiety about the Care Act easements, which is new legal powers which allow local authorities to suspend their duties to provide elements of social care in order to redirect resources towards coronavirus support and that's obviously worrying individuals with a learning disability and their

families that it might affect care packages. I know you have a son in his 30s who you can't be with at the moment. How is he doing? Yes, my son Ross has Fragile X Syndrome, which is the most common inherited form of learning disability. When we first all heard about the virus, he was very angry. He suffers from anxiety anyway, and so his anxiety was much higher. And he, like Louis Louis is really missing his routine his work placements at a hotel and a coffee shop have obviously stopped his swimming club stopped

and he's mad about football he lives for football and of course there's no football at the moment and his own personal assistant who provides him with support is not able to to go into the home but like Louis he has a very positive outlook. He's watching Disney films and he's being very well cared for by other members of the family. And how much are you able to be in contact with him? Well, I FaceTime him or we have family Zoom calls every day. And when he's not playing on his Xbox or in the middle of a Disney film, he is very happy to see me and to speak to me. But I miss him terribly.

He was due to be in London with me on Mother's Day. So it's a long, long time since I've seen him in person. But I know that he's happy. He's in his lovely home with Jamie and my husband, Steve, is providing wonderful care and support to them both. But Xbox takes precedence over mum, does it? It does, more often than not. Adele Harris, the chief executive of Mencap. Well, those conversations prompted this email

from a listener who says, I also have laid off all of my daughter's carers. In fact, I did it two weeks prior to the government advice on lockdown. My husband and I have been in strict isolation with her ever since. We are also both category A at risk and we have struggled initially to get food delivered. We've relied on friends to help. We haven't left home at all, so haven't been shopping. My younger daughter is also in strict isolation at my elder daughter's house with her boyfriend, so in case one of us is ill, they can step in and help. It's hard, very hard. Katie, our daughter, is very demanding and expects attention 24-7. She doesn't sleep well. What really moved me to tears, though,

was Jenny Murray's obvious concern when she asked, what about you? Who cares for you? Well, I'm terrified of the world we live in currently, and I'm even more scared of what comes next. I have fought for 28 years to keep Katie healthy, and I don't know if I'll be able to do that. We are currently anti-backing every item that comes into the house, deliveries, food, post. We don't have anybody other than my younger daughter visiting.

It's very tough for people like us who are pretty much forgotten. So it was lovely to hear a national programme recognising this. Well, we try our best and thank you to that listener for emailing us. We also this week did actually, and this is important, talk try our best and thank you to that listener for emailing us. We also this week did actually, and this is important, talk about young carers. That was on Tuesday's edition of the programme. So if you missed that, get the podcast for Tuesday from BBC Sounds. Now, three years ago, Asma Khan opened an award-winning restaurant in London called Darjeeling Express. And her big thing was about employing only women in the kitchen who'd cook

the kind of food they would make happily at home. Well, the restaurant had to close in March, obviously. So during Ramadan, Asma has just got the cooking at home to do. So what's happened to the people that she was employing? I called everybody in and I told them that, you know, I am going to pay for everyone till we open. And this includes, you know, part-time cleaners and people who come in late at night to clean the toilets in the restaurant who I've never even met in these three years because they come in at such an absurd time. And I just said, you let all these people know I am going to look after all of you. Because for me, that was the greatest responsibility. Because these are not just 25 individuals, they're 25 families. How could I sit on my table with my

children and eat in peace knowing that these people couldn't do it? But this could go on and on, Asma. How are you going to afford to do that? I was saving money to buy a flat, an investment. And I have this crazy Chinese friend who's this kind of, you must save, you must save. And she kind of would tell me this all the time. And my mother, you know, if you have an Indian mother, you'll understand immediately this whole idea of a rainy day. You know, you never think a rainy day will ever come. And then it did. And all this money that I'd saved up over the years, I've put back into my business. My greatest asset are my team. And this is the best way to have spent it. No property, nothing that I could have bought would have given me the value that I have right now,

knowing that my team are safe. How are you making the adjustment though to being at home? Because I know you were pretty busy when you were running the restaurant. I have to admit, I struggled. I would rather serve 200 people in my restaurant than my two teenage boys. They are never happy. They're eating up everything in the house. And all the options are offered them. Everything is rejected.

Like, is there anything else? I was like, you know, I can't believe it. You know, they don't want to eat what I want to cook. So yeah, two fussy teenagers is a real challenge. And there's very little thank yous. And of course, no tip at the end of the service. Yeah, it's been difficult. It's also, I have to say, very humbling

because I have not been a full-time mother for the last four years, you know, setting up my business. And I have huge respect for women who are doing this all the time. It is relentless. It is thankless. And, you know, it is so hard, you know, and I have been reminded again of how difficult it is to be at home and just have to look after all the housework. It's tough. I think you need to start asking your boys for tips, you know. They sound pretty typical, but ungrateful, obviously. What sort of recipes are you making in the lockdown that they don't particularly like?

One of them doesn't like, you know, Indian food and, you know, they want interesting stuff. They eat a lot more Chinese and Italian food. And then there's my older son has just come back from university because of the lockdown. It's a delight to have him, but he's training, he's boxing. And that means that everything that is protein in the house disappears and so it's all of these challenges and now that is Ramadan it's a bigger challenge because Ramadan for me has always been about you know interesting food what do I yearn for what do I want to cook all of that is gone because I just cook what I have in the house and there is a problem getting a lot of stuff and you know I don cook what I have in the house. And there is a problem

getting a lot of stuff. And, you know, I don't want to go to the Asian area. I don't want to shop unnecessarily. I don't want to go out. So I'm pretty much limited, you know, with all the interesting things that I've always associated with Ramadan, I don't have in my house this year. But how different is the way you're celebrating the breaking of the fast in Ramadan from what it was last year when you were doing it in the restaurant. In the restaurant, it was an absolute delight because the thing is we used to have people who would fast and they would come in just before the time that they had to break their fast

and then not even look at the menu because I would tell them, I'm not going to let you order, I'll order for you. Do you eat this? Do you eat that? And I would order for them. And everybody in the restaurant, because it is so small, realized that they're the ones who are fasting. And then like a kind of line of seven people, we were standing there waiting. The moment I heard the call to prayer on my phone, we just started running out with food for those tables. And what I loved was that people would applaud. So those who were eating their meal,

I think they all felt a bit guilty or it was just so beautiful that moment that we served the people who had been fasting. And then of course, we'd give dates to everyone who was halfway through their meal. In some ways, a solidarity, the whole restaurant was eating dates and these people, of course, were breaking their fast. It was just magical. And it people, of course, were breaking their fast. It was just magical.

And it's this kind of beautiful moment that, you know, I will carry with me forever. What's on the menu tonight for those ungrateful boys of yours? There's fish curry, which they're not impressed by because it's got a lot of bones in it. Too bad, how sad. This is what I really wanted to eat. But then I'm also making roast chicken. I'm doing something that they like, something that I like.

And I'm so fortunate that in this entire lockdown, I don't have my husband at home. He got locked down somewhere else. So it's like a relief. Anyway, for him, social distance would have been brilliant because he's an academic and not very sociable and would not come out and help a lot in the kitchen. So not having him is no big loss, but it would have been another person with different dietary requirements. Oh, God. Let's have one recipe from you, which we can put on the website that all of us could cook.

OK, so the thing is that, you know, I've seen one thing that there's a lot of potatoes everywhere. I'm half Bengali. I eat a lot of potatoes. And so the thing is that, you know, the recipe that works, there's two ways of using potatoes, making like a mashed potato, but it's a very traditional Bengali side dish. So one has got lots of chopped onions and chilies and coriander. The second version is a smoky, but you make it with smoked chilies and garlic and it just lifts

up anything. And I'm very, very bad. Two days ago, I ate this inside a toasted sandwich, carb on carb. But then, you know, when you're fasting, you're allowed to do these kinds of crazy things. Yeah. And I think at the moment, everybody's doing carbs on carbs. You know, the number of people who keep ringing me and saying, how am I going to lose all this weight afterwards? You're probably not doing that because at least you can fast during the day and just eat at night. Yeah. No, but actually, the thing is that I think at this time it's bruising. And I think that you need to be kind to yourself. Everybody has lost something big.

And, you know, those that are fortunate not to have lost a member of their family or friends are very lucky. But the sense of loss, it is hard to cope with. You know, be kind to yourself, you know, feed yourself, feed your soul. And, you know, when I left my restaurant, I was devastated. You know, I left a light on in my restaurant, my hope that I will return. And that's important to remember that. Asma Khan talking to Jenny, I did think it was great that her sons are so unappreciative. I mean, I'd move in with her at the drop of a hat and eat all that. Sounds fantastic, that food. You can find details of the recipe on Thursday's page of the Woman's Hour

website, which is always worth visiting. There's so much stuff going on there. It'll boggle the mind and maybe pass a couple of minutes. I don't know about you, I'm finding filling time slightly harder. You can always have a kip, of course, which brings me seamlessly on to the subject of dreams. Is it true that we are dreaming more in lockdown? Certainly people are only too willing on Zoom to tell you all about their latest dream, I find. The psychotherapist Lucy Beresford was on the programme this week. So too was Dr Megan Crawford

from the Sleep Research Unit at Strathclyde University. So, I asked Dr Megan Crawford, are people dreaming more? Well, I asked Dr Megan Crawford, are people dreaming more? Well, I think certainly so, but I think it's a combination of a few different things. So, first of all, to say it's not an alarming thing to be dreaming more, it's probably a function of sleeping more. So, we know that if we are REM sleep, which is where the stage of sleep where we do most of our dreaming, occurs in the second part of the night. And so what people are tending to do now, because most of us don't have a routine and don't have anything to get up for, is they tend to sleep more in the morning and sleep in.

So they might be having more of that REM sleep, more of that dreaming sleep. And we also know there's something called REM rebound. So if we're often if we get up too early, and to kind of deprive ourselves of that REM sleep, and when we go back to having more opportunity to sleep, we find that we dream more and have maybe more vivid dreams. So that might be one thing. Another thing is that we might be sleeping poorly at this stage at the moment. And that's a natural thing, of course, as well, because we're anxious. There's a lot of uncertainty. And so being woken up in the middle of the night and if especially you wake up during that REM sleep, you're more likely to actually recall those dreams. And so it might be a function of that as well. Right. Lucy, is this something you are hearing from your clients and are some of them more concerned than they ought to be about this? I'm definitely having all of my clients reporting dreams, which is quite unusual, even though usually when I start working

with someone, I will often say to them, oh, and of course, if you have a dream, do mention it to me, because it's quite refreshing to have someone say to me, tell me your dream. It's a bit like when you were saying in the introduction, you didn't want to tell your dream in case you bored us. I'm sure you wouldn't have done. But I think it was Henry James who said, tell a dream, lose a reader, because other people's dreams can be very uninteresting. You're telling me they are the most single boring anecdote you're ever going to hear, aren't they? But I have to say, certainly when a patient discovers from me that I'm really keen to hear them, then they're obviously a bit more open about it. But right now, so many people are

bringing not just saying that they can remember their dreams, but that they're very different. They're much more vivid. They're almost like long movies or episodes of a soap opera. I'm seeing some very big themes as well. Lots of people dreaming about washing, hand washing, as you can imagine, clearing out cupboards, getting rid of dirt. Lots of people dreaming about an ex. So lots of quite erotically charged dreams and also lots of dreams of frustration. I've had one where someone couldn't find their way out of the changing room to play sport for England, you know, that level of frustration. But also dreams around success. So what we would call wish fulfillment dreams where you actually want to triumph over something.

So really, people are being quite saturated by their dreams. Right. Megan, it echoes what sort of anecdotally is appearing in social media, for example. And I think, you know, it's easily explained by this phenomenon that what happens during the day, we kind of take over into our night, into our dream. So if we're very anxious during the day, then of course, we're going to be anxious in our dreams and that's sort of reflected. So that's the kind of phenomenon that we experience. How would you interpret dreaming about your ex at this time? Why do you think, Megan, if Lucy's right, more people are doing that? I wouldn't want to say anything about specific dreams and interpreting them. I mean, it's tricky. I can understand in a therapeutic situation that might be very different. And it's really interesting. There's some research showing that if you actually tell your dream, one of the theories is that you have some more empathy or induced empathy from the other counterpart. So I can see how that could enhance a therapeutic relationship.

But in terms of interpretation from the sort of science, unfortunately, there aren't any very large clinical trials and well-controlled trials that show that interpretation of dreams really means very much or is very effective in that sense. Dr Megan Crawford from the Sleep Research Unit and the psychotherapist Lucy Beresford. On Monday morning's edition of Woman's Hour, we're going to be asking what's happened to the expert female voices

in the coronavirus outbreak. We'll have another laughing baby and much else besides. Join us live if you can on Monday morning. If not, of course, the podcast is available via BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven 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.