Woman's Hour - Troupers: the founders of the Profanity Embroidery Group. Tackling debt. Midwives on the benefits of colostrum

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

More from our series that celebrates the women who get things done – the Troupers. They're very bad at blowing their own trumpets so we're doing it for them. Today we hear from Annie Taylor and Wendy Robinson the founders of the Profanity Embroidery Group in Whitstable.After building up credit card debt of £25,000 Clare Seal decided she had to do something drastic to deal with it. She set up an Instagram account to make herself accountable. Posting anonymously she shared her story and offered advice and solidarity to a growing community of people. She’s now written a book with tips and advice for others in a similar situation. It’s called Real Life Money: an honest guide to taking control of your finances Plus two midwives from Kent Kent midwives - Sally Sidhu and Jan Gatehouse - who've just an award for their work on promoting colostrum tell Jane all about the benefits of so called "liquid gold" especially for premature babies. And as some children in England return to school how do you deal with a child who still needs to be shielded. Presenter Jane Garvey Producer Beverley PurcellGuest; Annie Taylor Guest; Wendy Robinson Guest; Clare Seal Guest; Sally Sidhu Guest; Jan Gatehouse

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. It's the Woman's Hour podcast from Monday, June 1st, 2020. Here we go. Hello, good morning. Today, liquid gold, they call it. It's colostrum. We'll talk about the special power of colostrum on Woman's Hour today.

We'll also discuss the shame of debt and how you can get out of it. My guest is Claire Seal, known on social media as At My Frugal Year. She had 25 grand's worth of debt. She's got it down to around 10 now. How has she done it and how did she get through it? It wasn't easy to start with, but if that resonates with you, make sure you're listening right to the end of today's edition of the programme. Now, as we know, some children in reception in year one and in year six in England can start going back to school today. It'll be interesting to see how many do go and what they make of it. Yesterday, the Cabinet Minister, Robert Jenrick, announced, and it was something of a surprise this, that people who are shielding remain vulnerable and should continue to take precautions

but can now leave their house as long as they maintain social distancing. So what about family shielding because of a vulnerable child? How are they feeling about the situation this morning? Dan White has a daughter of 14, Emily, who is a wheelchair user with autism. Jen Faulkner has got three children, one is 18 and a student, and she has sons of 11 and 8, and both are vulnerable. They have something called primary ciliary dyskinesia, and we'll talk to her too. And to Siobhan Flynn, O'Flynn, I apologise, it's important. Siobhan O'Flynn, she has a son, Dylan, who is nine and about to finish cancer treatment after three and a half years. So we'll chat to Siobhan in a moment. Dan, first of all, how are you and how are Emily feeling this morning about all this?

Emily is, as you quite rightly said, autistic. And the whole thing has just thrown the family and more so Emily, especially into confusion. I mean, we were all under the impression that stage one when there was no transmission and when there was a vaccine available that was going to be the stage when people were going to be able to leave the house but because it's been dropped on us effectively like some unwanted surprise within 24 hours with emily's autism she's finding it very very hard to deal with one minute saying yes then they're saying no and of course she's very very apprehensive about contracting Covid. Have you as

a family been able to go out at all Dan? The only person who has been able to go out is myself and obviously I've been PPE'd up as as best as I can I've had to go out obviously to pick up medication and just little bits of food it was only late in the day we were eligible for free home urgent deliveries from a supermarket. And now we're only eligible for medical deliveries. It's only been me literally leaving the house. And I gather, as you've already said, Emily's autism means that certainty is what she likes and what she can live with. And all this has just come out of nowhere as far as she's concerned exactly it has i mean i mean i think this is the first time recorded history that

are parent carers and carers have seen as valuable and and emily's finding the whole situation very hard to do or she thrives on being social she's a very sociable child she loves her friends and and it's just trying to constantly explain to her there's no fault of her own at all that you cannot see your friends you cannot hold your friends you cannot touch your friends i mean the whole thing is just a big ball of confusion and i think the government are just making snap decisions here and then to appease everyone and it's just not helping families like ours right so what will you do today dan uh emily will be staying in today she's made that a home decision she says if they can't get their their facts right and decide for me i'll go and decide

for myself and i will be staying in with your support yeah with with my total support she's very intelligent very sassy like all our children are and and i will follow her follow her remit on this one all right right stay with us Jen good morning to you Jen you've got three children I know one is 18 in her first year at university she's now back home and your sons have primary ciliary dyskinesia which Jen means what for them? It's an inherited rare disease that affects the respiratory system so the cilia has that remove new system bacteria from the lungs and with children system. So the cilia are hairs that remove mucus and bacteria from the lungs. And with children with PCD, their cilia don't work.

So they get recurrent infections. They have hearing loss, often due to the same thing as well. So they spend a lot of time in and out of hospital. They have to do physiotherapy on their lungs every single day to clear the mucus and take medication as well. So that's kind of how it affects us daily. And you, because you're a teacher, I think you're a primary school teacher, aren't you? I was, yes. I used to be a primary school teacher.

So home schooling has come slightly easier to me. I wouldn't say it was easy by any stretch. But luckily I do have that to fall back on. So that's helped in that respect. And your older child who is university, is now back at home, and her life is necessarily very different too. It is, because she has to stay at home as well because of the boys, so she's very much affected by their condition.

I was talking to her yesterday, it's her birthday next week, and she was saying that if the boys didn't have CPD, she'd be able to have some friends round for a socially distant barbecue, and she can't. And I think now that the lockdown is relaxing and the advice is changing, and there's more freedom for everybody else, it's becoming more noticeable that we're not in the same boat, and that people are living a really different pandemic experience to us.

And you didn't know that the change in advice was going to happen yesterday either, did you? No, I didn't. And does that mess with your mind to a degree, the apparent sudden change? It does. I don't know why the information that was released so late and almost as a bit of a throwaway comment,

I think sometimes our shielders have often fought for information. It seems we're a bit of an afterthought. Every press conference is all about the general population and it's quite hard to get information. But we're very lucky that the PCD team and the PCD family support group are phenomenal at guiding us

and contacting us and staying in touch. So, yes, I mean, we'll be staying at home today. The advice is for my year six child not to go back to school anyway until we see what happens. But we're very lucky that we get the extra information from them and we very much trust them and what they tell us to do, what they advise. OK, thank you. Siobhan, with your son Dylan, only nine.

And it's so difficult this because he was about to finish his cancer treatment before all this started, Siobhan, is that right? Yeah, well, his cancer treatment finished on the 17th of march um and we had put him into isolation the week before because uh he was finding it very difficult at school um listening to the information as it was coming through about coronavirus and was getting very anxious so we took the steps to take him out of school early, partly because of his anxiety, but also because we had absolutely no idea what impact it could possibly have on him.

So it's been quite a while since we've been in isolation and in lockdown. And yes, he finished his cancer treatment and then basically went into a whole different type of isolation. Has it been of any help to him or you that at least his mates from school were also living a very different sort of life? I think for the first time in three and a half years, he's felt like he's knocked the odd one out. And to begin with, I think that helped him a lot,

knowing that everybody was doing homeschooling. And he is used to quite a bit of homeschooling because there's a lot of school that he's missed. So he found it quite comforting that, yeah, his peers and classmates are all sort of logging on and having to do a bit of work at home and having to be taught by their mothers or fathers. Yeah. Heaven forbid, in most cases.

I know I couldn't do it. But now, do you feel to a degree you're back to square one that life is beginning to change for some people it's interesting because um at the beginning of this we found our rhythm very quickly and i think having a child or anyone really can't diagnose with cancer just highlights what is really precious to you so it wasn't it was a no-brainer for us to be able to just say right that's it Dylan is the absolute most important thing here and we're used to living without choices and we're used to living without freedom so at first I was just this is fine you know this is fine we could cope but I think having watched how people how some people have gone through lockdown and the laws and the fact that they're changing.

I now know in the last couple of weeks, it's really hit me that we won't see our family. We won't. I don't know when Dylan will be able to have a friend over to play indefinitely. I don't know when he'll even go back to school. I don't know if he'll make the next school year. So the last week or so has really kind of come at me like a bit of a steam train. And it's just having to acknowledge the realisation that, yeah, people are moving forward and we feel like we're going to be left behind. Yeah, I can totally understand that, Siobhan. That is tough for you. Thank you very much for that.

I'd like all three of you to listen to NHS England's Clinical Director for Children's Mental Health. This is Professor Pratiba Chitsabeesan and she told me that there is no doubt that today could be a very tough one for those who are not going back to school. I think some of those young people

will feel left out and potentially isolated. I know that some young people with pre-existing mental health needs also feel quite anxious about the return to school so I think there is going to be a real kind of mixed response in young people. I think that parents and carers and teachers probably need to be aware of that. There is quite a lot that I think both parents and carers and teachers can do to support young people whether they're at home and on that kind of vulnerable list not being able to return to school or whether they're already back in school and returning over the next few weeks.

And the children who have given up a great deal to help their more vulnerable siblings, what about them because their mental health could really have been impacted by these weeks of isolation as well. I agree. I think there are lots of really practical tips that you can, and strategies that you can put into place as a parent or carer. So start by just making some time to talk to your child about how they're feeling, and provide some reassurance that some of their feelings are very normal emotional responses to a very abnormal stressful situation.

That reassurance in itself I think can be really helpful. Some of the other strategies that I have to say that I put in place with my children and that I advise my patients to do as well is just provide some predictability routine. I think life feels fairly out of control at the moment and not very predictable for young people so just having a weekly timetable, adding some positive activities that we know might improve your child's mental health and include within that physical exercise. We know that that's positive for everyone's mental health. So there are simple steps that I think you can take as a parental carer. From today, of course, some people who have previously been urged to stay in

have been told they can now go out. So will this present an opportunity or a challenge? What do you think? I think it will be both. We know that it's good for people's mental health to be able to get out, to re-engage in activities, to socially connect with others. So in that way, I think that can be incredibly positive.

For the benefit of our listeners who have either been staying indoors because that was the information they had or they've been making sure that their vulnerable child is protected so the whole family has been isolated would you advise them that today's the day it's absolutely fine you can get out there? I would say it's really important to take cautious steps around those so do follow the Public Health England guidance around whether you're in that category that needs to continue to be shielded

or whether you're in a category where you're able to be able to get out and start to have some of that contact with other people. But this is where the confusion sets in because as we understand it according to what the government announced on Saturday evening slightly to everyone's surprise, it is now OK to go out if you're concerned about the potential impact on your own physical health and please do contact your gp or your health provider or clinician for further advice about this

well that is the nhs england clinical director for children's mental health professor pratiba chitsa besan so briefly back to dan white who's been shielding his 14 year old daughter, Emily, who has autism and is a wheelchair user. Dan, are you relying on your GP for advice on exactly that, whether or not you should go out with Emily? Sadly, not. No. As much as as many other people, we were having no outside intervention from basically anyone out. There's no external social care coming in to support us or anything like that i can appreciate what she's saying but the thing is going back to what she was saying about routine when your child is a wheelchair user and obviously has spina bifida which affects the bowels consonants things that we don't really have

routine things generally fall on you there and then and and and although again if i may say is is it's interesting to hear what she said from my point of view and for many families of disabled children across the uk it would be now would be the time to actually hear from our minister for disabled persons in the daily briefing now would be the time for him to step up for an afternoon briefing and put this point across coherently. I'm sure that's a perfectly valid suggestion. I wonder whether it will happen today. Thank you very much. Yeah, well, let's keep an eye on that. Thank you, Dan. You heard there from Dan White, from Jen Faulkner and from Siobhan O'Flynn with a range of challenges,

which they were good enough to express this morning. Our thanks to them. And on Thursday morning, we're going to hear from four disabled women, three of whom are still shielding. They'll talk about their life in lockdown and the impact it's had on them. That's on Thursday of this week. Now, before lockdown, Women's Hour did begin to interview women who are great British volunteers. They are the backbone of the nation, Britain's troopers, the sorts of women who keep us all going. Annie Taylor and Wendy Robinson are the founders of the Profanity Embroidery Group in Whitstable in Kent. One day, Annie shared a cartoon on social media of a deceptively genteel looking lady finding an outlet for her frustrations by embroidering rude words on cushions.

All hidden, of course, amongst lots of lovely pretty hearts and flowers. It got a big reaction, and Annie'sroidery Group, came into my mind. And we put out a call to set a date and a place. And really Annie and I expected we'd both turn up with our stitching and you know nobody else would be there but actually we were quite surprised at how much of a interest it had garnered locally. So it turns out that there is a need? Definitely I mean it's the reaction the group has got from when we first set it up has just been incredible. Yeah and I think we're probably the generation of women who were taught to do stitch at school so embroidery I mean I remember growing up and you actually had a needlework class and only girls were in the needlework class and

the boys were in woodwork so we were taught to stitch our parents would have been stitching they'd have been from the generation of the war of makado and men so we had that but then we brought our own kind of contemporary twist to it one of my loveliest memories was sitting in the pub where we meet and stitching one evening and a gentleman coming over and saying oh I do love to see ladies of a certain age engaging with the old arts and crafts so I said to him would you like to look at my work and I showed him what I was working on and he walked away quickly. What were you working on? I was working on a piece.

The word was actually quimbiseal. And you might need to look that up because it's not really in common parlance. But how we kind of got ourselves going in the beginning, because beyond the obvious profanities, we kind of thought we were going to make a quilt and you can't really make a quilt out of four or five words. So we gave ourselves a challenge and asked everyone to bring along to the next meeting two or three words that they'd done a bit of research around. Put them into a hat.

We took out one and then we had to work on that word. It was quite useful because some of the group at the beginning work in schools. One in particular, she taught teenage boys, so she came in with her own hat full of words, really. There's scholarliness at the heart of this. You're going away and doing serious research into swearing, historical and contemporary. We get quite sidetracked sometimes

with the whole sort of history of where the words come from. It's not something we've done a project on yet, but amongst ourselves we get quite a lot of entertainment in what is the root of a word and how long it's been around. And then we can use that to justify our use of it as well. We tend to do that research in our own time. When we actually get together, we're not in the slightest bit scholarly, I have to say, given that we meet in a public house.

And we try and do some work when we're there but our best work is probably done back at home. Yeah we did discover that quite often the work done in the pub does have to be unpicked and restitched. And who comes to the group? We have a real mixture. We have people who are in their day jobs, fairly respectable, and probably, like myself, unable to use swear words in any liberal sense. And then we have artists and musicians, teachers, just people who actually love two things, I think, company and creating things. Because when we set it up, initially the people that were arriving on the first meeting came to us because they had a love of textile and like the idea of swearing

but once we'd begun to take form as a group we had more people joining who absolutely loved swearing and didn't really have the textile experience but they were able to you know people were able to help each other so the ones who could sew would help the ones who could swear but not sew and the ones who could swear really well would help the ones who could sew really well but couldn't swear very well so it worked out balance is nicely doesn't it so do you think that there's a kind of a positive emotional outcome from this activity i think the science actually backs up that swearing is very good for your mental health and then i think there's also evidence to suggest that stitching

is very mindful one of our members when she was going through quite a half time she said being able to stab something a thousand times really helped what does it do for you both individually to have set this up because you know sometimes there's a sense that you're looking for something as well that you found but you might have not known you were looking for it. I think for me it happened at a time where my marriage of 20-odd years had come to an end. I dedicated a lot of my energy into kind of family life and had kind of given up on my sort of artistic and creative activities, which had been the mainstay of my sort of 20s. So getting back into creativity and just sort of expressing myself really,

I think was where that kind of took root in terms of peg I think it's also something about the light-heartedness of it though as well of needing to go somewhere that you can be totally yourself I think what I needed was that sort of acceptance and encouragement to be me whether that meant swearing or sewing or all the various other things that you know I have in life. But at the end of the day, you look forward to it and it's lighthearted and it brings joy to people genuinely. And I think that's what my kind of real sort of pleasure in it and need for myself is to have somewhere where you're safe, warm, welcome and just have a bloody good time. So I spoke to Sue. She told me a whole bunch of interesting things

so she said that obviously as the group has grown it's quite a big proposition kind of keeping everybody in order it's herding cats now she says you have quite different ways of doing that apparently annie there's a look do you recognise that? yeah yes she pointed it out the other evening that I was doing the look usually has kind of a mouth move with it as well it's entirely silent

Wendy knows them Wendy can impersonate my mouth movement she knows it's not... And Wendy, you're a bit more direct, if direct is needed. Is that right? Absolutely, yes. I'll stand up, make lots of noise. I've got a very loud voice.

I can have anyway. So, yeah, between us, we kind of get both ends. But we were quite clear at the beginning that if we had it too much as a cooperative, we'd never, ever get anything done. So Annie and I, I think when needs must, we'll either give the look or stand up, make a noise and just try and, you know, pull people together. And usually they let us do that. one of the other things that Sue said is that it's easier to talk about stuff in your life when you're not making eye contact with somebody when you're stitching

tell me about that it's also it works with walking just doing an activity with someone as opposed to sort of sitting there looking at somebody maybe having a cup of tea and a cake or even a drink. It's the activity of doing something.

Your focus is elsewhere. And it just means that it gives us more of a sort of safe space because you're not under a spotlight. So people can be more open if they want to be. Well, that was fantastic. The reporter was Laura Thomas and you heard from Annie Taylor and Wendy Robinson,

the founders of the Profanity Embroidery Group in Whitstable. There's a friend of mine who could so sign up to that. She'd be absolutely ideal. I hope she's listening this morning. I myself, I'm not particularly potty-mouthed. I should say particularly, and just as well I'm not's listening this morning. I myself, I'm not particularly potty mouthed.

I should say particularly, and just as well, I'm not at this precise moment. Think of the things I could say. They're all fainting next door. Ilhan Omar is somebody I was really, really looking forward to interviewing. That was going to be recorded later on today. She is the Congresswoman for Minnesota, a former refugee and the first Somali American to get such a role. Obviously, not surprisingly, with the events in the United States over the last couple of days, she has not been able to do the interview today. It's been postponed, but we are told it will happen. She's written a book about her life called This Is What America Looks Like. So we really hope we can get around to doing that interview as soon as possible. And we will be talking about parenting a black child on woman's hour tomorrow the challenges of that at the moment and the fear

you must feel um right now so if you have a point of view you'd like us to include in that discussion tomorrow please do contact the program via our website bbc.co.uk slash woman's hour now on friday we talked about public toilets, how many of them were inaccessible in the lockdown, had just been shut. And of course, how actually, relatively speaking, how few public toilets we have now because of cuts to local councils.

So many people reacted to that. It was repeated on weekend, womanshour, and we had more emails after that, partly because during the weekend highlights programme, I did suggest that women should start peeing in the open like the men do. Sometimes I say things and I don't always, you know, I just think, oh, well, that's worth saying. And it's kept in the programme when I thought it might be taken out. Anyway, guess what? Loads of people want to join in my campaign.

This is from Christine. Many years ago, Jane, I was a young teacher. We took a mixed party from Normandy to Paris for the day and stopped for a comfort break at some very unhygienic toilets. You know the kind. The boys soon got fed up of waiting and just went off into the bushes. The girls, though, were still in a long queue for the very dodgy toilet when I and the other female teacher went into the bushes, encouraging the girls to follow suit, but they declined. We were on a tight schedule and so they had to get back on the coach. On the way back,

we stopped at the same toilets and lo and behold, the girls were quite happy to go into the bushes. The boys were all safely back on the coach and were out of prying eyes, couldn't see anything. Keep up the good work, says Christine. Another listener is less convinced. It's all right for Jane Harvey to suggest ladies squatting down to pee because she obviously can. Yes, that's the Pilates for you. A great many ladies, including myself, can't because of conditions such as arthritis. Well, I appreciate that can be very tough. Also, I'm not a prude, says this listener, but I don't like seeing men peeing in public. Well, no, nor do I. And that's my point. If they can, though, so can we.

And this, I think, ends the discussion once and for all. Jane, I completely agree with you and I love your new campaign. I honestly hadn't intended to start a campaign. But the listener carries on. My grandmother, who was an honourable and the daughter of a lord and had servants and died at the age of 96 in 1980, used to pee by the side of the road without hesitation. Skirts have their uses, says that listener. I think that is the end of that particular debate.

Well, I don't know. We might return to it tomorrow at BBC Woman's Hour or email us via the website. Colostrum is a wonderful stuff. It's that yellow coloured breast milk full of antibodies produced straight after birth. Now what you might not know, and I didn't know, is that you can express it and store it before you have a child. Two midwives from Kent,

one of whom is now retired, have won an award for their work in promoting it. They are Sally Sidhu and Jan Gatehouse. Here's Sally. Colostrum is the first milk that's produced during pregnancy from as early as 16 weeks of pregnancy. And it's what's available to the baby when the baby's newly born for the first three days of its life. And it's a very, very special substance. We call it liquid gold. It has

properties which help prevent infection. It's perfect for a new baby, so the baby is able to digest it very easily. It also helps to line the baby's gut and make it much more of a secure gut so that infections are less likely. Okay, so when we talk about your milk coming in, Jan, this is not colostrum. The colostrum is there right from the very start, the moment of birth. Yes, it's already there. You've been making it, as Sally said, from about 16 to 18 weeks. And just the baby suckling or if the baby's unable to suckle, then the mother can hand express.

And this will help the milk production start around the third day when the milk-producing hormones come into action. And the colostrum will change in terms of not being so thick and creamy. It will gradually become more in volume and the baby will have a more filling feed. But it's all to do with the baby's size of its tummy when it's born. It's only very tiny, the size of a marble, so it doesn't need much. So the colostrum is fine for that period in time and gradually grows as each feed gets bigger in volume. So what is it you want to change then Sally? Well what we want to change is the

availability of colostrum to the mothers this is why we've produced the film so that they can collect it antenatally and they can freeze it and have a little stock at home that they then bring into hospital with them so that they can use it for giving them confidence with breastfeeding. But also, if they have a baby who's going to be at risk of having low blood sugars, and there are several of those, one, the most common being a baby of a diabetic mother, then we have this extra colostrum if the feeding is a bit slow or if the baby won't feed at all. We have this extra colostrum that we can give in the hospital. Right, OK. So, Jan, this would involve a woman being taken into a room

at an antenatal appointment and encouraged to express the colostrum there and then? Oh no, the whole point of the film is to be able to give her a way of seeing how to do it and lots of practical tips on the film that we would give if we were on a one-to-one. But she may not want to do it in an antenatal clinic. So we give her the tools to go home and do it at home in her own house where she can feel more relaxed, have a nice warm drink. Sometimes mothers like their partners to help them or a friend.

And this film just explains how to do it. And there's a practical demonstration of how to do it. And we found over the years of helping mothers that these tips that we give are all a formulation of things that other mothers have found really helpful. Yeah, I must be either spectacularly dense or just forgetful, but I honestly didn't know that I was producing this during pregnancy. Certainly no one ever suggested to me

that I could express it before I gave birth. Jan? No, it is amazing. It is amazing. Women's bodies are amazing. They are preparing to nurture a baby from such an early time in the pregnancy. And yeah, we know so much more about it now. And the value of it. It is such a valuable substance. It's perfect nutrition for a newborn. Right. But I didn't have my kids that long ago. Literally, nobody mentioned this to me. I mean, I know about colostrum because I knew that was what was there immediately after birth. But at no point did anyone suggest getting it out of me and having it available at the point of birth? It just didn't happen, Sally.

Well, it's a fairly new thing. It's been around colostrum collecting since the early noughties, so 2003 onwards. And it was relatively unresearched at that stage. So perhaps that's why midwives weren't talking about it too freely. But certainly the colostrum is available during pregnancy. And some women actually do leak colostrum antenatally and come to see their midwife and are quite concerned about it. So we reassure them that it's normal and that they can collect it if they want to. Not everybody does produce it and is able to get it antenatally.

But that doesn't mean that they can't obtain it once the baby's born or if the baby's feeding well, the baby will manage to get it itself. Right. Well, I was going to ask you that. So if you cannot produce it antenatally, don't be concerned. It doesn't mean you won't be able to breastfeed. No. But for the mothers, say, who are expecting twins, we know that, or triplets, multiple pregnancies, for them, they often know that they may well go into labour early. And to know that they have a little store of colostrum that's in their freezer that they can bring in with them if they go into labour early, which might mean that their baby's unable or too premature to be able to breastfeed. They have that store of goodness for their baby to have initially. And how much is enough?

Well, for most women, we suggest about 20 mils if they can obtain that over the pregnancy. But obviously for a twin, if you're having a multiple pregnancy, a little bit more than that. But we do hope that most babies can suckle and the mother can continue to hand express once the baby's there to help her milk production, even if the baby can't feed at that point. So there should be plenty if she's got 20 mils. And of course, not everybody can breastfeed in the end, or not everybody wants to breastfeed. Is this a way, Sally, of allowing women who for whatever reason don't pursue breastfeeding to at least be able to give their babies colostrum?

Absolutely. And women who don't actually want to go through the process of breastfeeding because they feel embarrassed or for whatever reason, they are able to feel happy that they can collect this colostrum antenatally and then carry on and express once the milk has come in, often using pumps and so forth. So the baby gets the breast milk, but the mother doesn't have to breastfeed. It's the woman's choice and we support her in that. Okay, and really briefly, Jan, do you need particular bottles or pots to store it or will anything clean do? Preferably sterile. And most of the mothers who do the collection are given colostrum-collecting syringes by their midwives or health professionals. And once they've shown an interest in collecting colostrum collecting syringes by their midwives or health professionals. And once they've shown an interest in collecting colostrum.

And on the film, it's explaining how to store the syringes and to label them so that when they bring them into hospital, their baby will get their very own colostrum and not somebody else's. And different hospitals have different ways of doing that. But on our film, we've done it how we do it at Tunbridge Wells. That's Jan Gatehouse. You also heard from midwife Sally Sidhu. And that film they've made, the award-winning film, is called Colostrum Collection in Pregnancy, When to Start and How to Do It. And it's available online. Colostrum Collection in Pregnancy,

when to start and how to do it. Let's talk debt. Claire Seal is a freelance copywriter in her early 30s. Claire, good morning to you. Hi. Hi, Jane. I am really interested in this. Your book is called Real Life Money. On Instagram, you've set up My Frugal Year. And this is all about debt and guilt and shame. So take me right back to the start of all this. How did you amass £25,000 worth of debt? Well it was over the course of sort of about five years. I'd never had a very good relationship with money. It was quite sort of fundamentally broken. I didn't have an idea about how to budget

or how to live within my means. When I went to university, I sort of ticked the box for the massive overdraft that they give you. And I've only just paid that off now, sort of more than 10 years later. So just real incremental... Pardon. 10 years later. So just real incremental, pardon, incremental overspending in conjunction with sort of quite big life milestones, like having children and getting married. And then I think that often once you have some debts, it can really perpetuate because you get this idea that you're bad with money anyway and that there's no way out of it.

What you're keen to emphasise, I know, is that you're not talking about poverty. That is a very different thing. You are talking about debt and what you describe as your poor relationship with money and living within your means, which you singularly failed to do. And it's so easy because each month you spend 75 quid or 50 quid more than you've got. The debts mount up. Absolutely. And it really is, you know, as you said, it is about being sort of broke, not being poor, because that's a very important distinction. And yeah, the difference between sort of spending £50 more than you should and £50 less than you're able to over time makes an incredible amount of difference. So what do people do if they're facing a similar situation to your own?

First of all, acknowledge it. The worst thing you can do, presumably, is nothing. Absolutely, and I think more than that. The worst thing that you can do is keep your head in the sand and be in denial about it, because that's what I did for an awfully long time, because it felt too big to face up to. And the whole time that you're doing that not only is the situation getting materially worse

but you're probably feeling worse and worse and more anxious and the longer you wait the more difficult it's going to be to sort of check those balances and to arm yourself with the facts. But what happens let's say I have got credit card debt I can't pay back, what happens if I ring up my credit card company? So it really depends from lender to lender. But the first thing I think before you call them, you should have kind of written down preferably, you know, what you're going to say and what you would like the outcome to be. So, you know, for instance, if you're paying a really high amount of interest, and it's really impeding your ability to pay off any of your balance, then

you might ask if there is a lower interest rate that they can offer you, you might ask if there is a lower interest rate that they can offer you you might ask if they are able to um freeze your interest for a couple of months these are all things that I or people who follow me on Instagram have had happen um you know a couple of people have told me how with one supplier their interest rate was reduced from something like 25 percent down to six percent which if you have a high balance, you can imagine the difference that that would make over that period. But have an idea of what you want to say. If you find this very emotional, which a lot of people do with money, it's really, really easy to get flustered and frustrated. Of course. And at the moment, moment mortgage holidays we know are a thing. What about if you're renting privately? If you're renting I mean we rent we rent privately and

actually we moved house the morning after the lockdown was announced because our landlords decided to sell up and so we didn't have a choice but to move. The protection that's been put in for renters is not adequate in my opinion. All that's really happened is that the period where landlords could give you notice was increased from two months to three months. But what I would recommend is, you know, communicate with either your landlord or your letting agency, keep them informed as to what's going on. And I think both tenants and landlords need to exercise some forbearance and try and come to an arrangement that, you know, works for both. That is the voice of Claire Seal,

talking about her own experience of getting into debt and starting to get out of it. Her book, if you're interested, is called Real Life Money, an honest guide to taking control of your finances. And if you want to follow her on social media, she is at MyFrugalYear. So, to your emails today today on the subject of shielding children, Julian emailed to say, we didn't get a letter about shielding our disabled daughter

who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy until eight weeks into lockdown. Two weeks later, and we're told we don't have to shield anymore, a story we've heard from many others. All the support has obviously also been withdrawn, that's occupational therapy and physio, etc. More importantly, the social isolation of disabled children is a key factor and so not having access to school is also hugely problematic. Ironically, the lockdown may give others the experience of social isolation that many disabled people already experience. Thank you very much for that, Julian. That certainly gives you pause for thought, doesn't it? Anna says, fabulous parents, so eloquent on the programme today.

We have teens aged 15 and 17 who are staying in to shield their elder brother. They are coping amazingly well, but no, we cannot do this forever. Some hard decisions ahead for all of us on our own here, waiting on the platform while everybody else goes by. Again, that sums it up brilliantly, doesn't it? Thank you very much for that, Anna. One of our contributors in that conversation, Dan White, did say it was about time that the Minister for the Disabled made an appearance at the daily briefing and addressed some of the issues raised by parents and families who are shielding a vulnerable member of the family unit.

And I confess I didn't know who that person was. We have now found out it's Justin Tomlinson MP who was appointed as the Minister for the Disabled on the 4th of April 2019. Lots of you are very interested in the item about colostrum and about collecting it antenatally, which I honestly did not know you could do. And Julie says, I'm amazed that the collection of colostrum pre-birth isn't common practice. I speak as a person who's had very little to do with human babies, but plenty to do with lambs and kids and foals. And we always had spare colostrum in the freezer for emergencies and for weak babies. Farmers and breeders can now get colostrum powder ready to mix, so it's not now as critical to collect from mothers. Do they do the same with human colostrum, I wonder? I'm working from home, so loving having the chance

to listen to Radio 4 in the background, says Julie. Well, thank you for that, Julie. I'd prefer to be in the foreground, if you don't mind. But I suppose the background is better than nothing. But isn't that interesting that farmers have powdered colostrum, ready to go at any time? Did not know that. From Tracy, listening to you talking about collecting colostrum ready to go at any time. Did not know that. From Tracy, listening to you talking about collecting colostrum,

how I wish I'd known this for my daughter who's now 30. As a paediatric nurse, I understood the importance of those first feeds being from me, not a bottle. But after a prolonged labour and a forceps delivery, her blood sugar was low and so she got formula milk without my knowledge. Maybe we were not so aware of this 30 years ago Yes, absolutely, Tracey, and thank you very much for that. Listening to your programme says, Melanie, from week 16 of both my pregnancies, I had leaky breasts. When I first experienced large, damp patches pregnancies, I had leaky breasts. When I first experienced

large damp patches at work, I thought I was sweating. But luckily, an older female colleague advised it was breast related. But I had no idea then or now that this was colostrum and could have been collected and stored. I did breastfeed for a short while, but struggled such a lot with constantly leaking breasts day and night. Thank you, Melanie. From Louise, interested to hear about colostrum harvesting on the programme today. I had a baby in September and I live in Oxfordshire, where there is an amazing Zumba class organised by experienced midwives. After the weekly class, they host a class and a chat, and that's where I first heard about colostrum harvesting.

Our NCT class teacher thought it sounded a bit newfangled. I love that. I just love the whole expression, newfangled, because it suggests there's an oldfangled, and I don't think there is. But anyway, I was very wary unless there was a medical reason, but several of my friends managed to collect lots whilst pregnant. I didn't manage to until I was very wary unless there was a medical reason, but several of my friends managed to collect lots whilst pregnant. I didn't manage to until I was in labour and it helped speed it up.

But once I'd given birth, it was brilliant to be able to hand express and syringe feed as my daughter had trouble latching. So if any pregnant women are listening and downhearted about not being able to harvest antenatally, don't be discouraged. It will help postnatally. And now eight months on, there are certainly no milk supply issues. I've loved being able to listen regularly to Women's Hour during maternity leave. Thanks for everything you do. It's getting a bit Radio 2 here. We'll miss it when I'm back at work.

Hurrah for podcasts. Well, yes, I'm glad you said that, Louise, because we're not absent from your life, even when I'm back at work. Hurrah for podcasts. Well, yes, I'm glad you said that, Louise, because we're not absent from your life, even when you go back to work. And we should say, of course, that we're very grateful. The Woman's Hour podcast has been going great guns during lockdown. I think possibly because people are discovering it

or rediscovering it and making it a part of their daily routine. So thank you very much for that. We do appreciate it. Dear Jane says, Rosie, when I had my third child, she didn't feed for many days, of their daily routine so thank you very much for that we do appreciate it um dear jane says rosie when i had my third child she didn't feed for many days but loved to suckle without stimulating milk my midwife and breastfeeding counselor were very relaxed about this as she was my third and i had successfully breastfed her siblings on day four she started feeding and fed all day

literally i took her off the breast to put her sister in the high chair but apart from that she remained attached all day long as I tried to get on with other things. My milk came in the next day and I became concerned about how much colostrum she'd managed to take. My breastfeeding counsellor responded how much do you want her to have? She took it all day yesterday. I feel privileged to have breastfed my three children with great support from my midwife and NCT breastfeeding counsellor. It was a wonderful experience. Rosie, thank you for that. And I'm glad that worked so well for you. Now, a lot of people loved hearing about the profanity embroidery group. And I asked Bev, who's in charge today, whether they were still looking for members.

The answer, she tells me, is that we don't know. So that's brilliant. But I'm sure you can find them out there on social media. That was the branch that operates out of Whitstable in Kent. But they've got to, if there aren't already other profanity embroidery groups, then there should be. And I hope that will encourage somebody to set up a competing group somewhere else in Britain because it clearly it clearly brings a lot of comfort or more than comfort to the people who take part and yes there was a word in that feature that no I never expected to hear on Radio 4 either. To the difficult no it's not

difficult the important subject of peeing outdoors if you're female, Cathy, Jane, hooray for your comments about women peeing in the open. I do it when needs must, as otherwise I am bound to the house. I have always been discreet, but this often means retreating into the long grass. Do warn participants to look out for ants nests and stinging nettles. It is still worth the bladder relief, says Cathy. Stride out, sisters, if you can, and let's get more facilities for those who can't crouch. Dear Jane and team, there's no team.

It's almost all me, Julia, particularly now. I know they're going to keep that in. They've let that go. Having been a geology and a geography student in my teens, says Julia, I became very used to peeing alfresco on various field trips, as did all the female students. My two girls are also happy to find a convenient shrub to squat behind for a pee when on family walks when nature calls. Thank you for talking about this. A number of people have said that on their walking group outings, it's all done very efficiently. The women go and the men move on and then you switch around a little bit further up the path.

So it's all out there and all human experience is going on. Lavinia, I haven't listened to all of this debate. It's very kind of you, Lavinia, to refer to it as a debate. But I haven't heard much mention of Shiwis. Well, no, you haven't partly because shiwis are the moon cup of this world aren't they they're sort of ubiquitous but not everybody can as i say get on with them uh lavinia can she says i haven't oh she's a no i do apologize i haven't used one myself but years ago it was very popular with fellow lady golfers who got short and for whom squatting in the bushes was not really an option. No, because, of course, am I right in saying that lady golfers have to wear golfing trousers, that there's been no, they haven't changed the etiquette?

I think that's right. I think if you play golf, they're very strict on what you wear and they have to be particular golf trousers. Anyway, here is Louise. Listening to you talking about women weeing in public, I totally agree that it feels uncomfortable. It's even more difficult than usual at the moment with so many public toilets closed. When running or cycling, I have often had to go in bushes and you have to go in quite deep, battling rubbish, spider's webs, branches. You put yourself in a physically vulnerable position and you have to make sure you're not seen. Then of course without wiping you don't feel quite right afterwards. Anyway we can pee like men.

I really wanted Jane to mention these three words. Female urinary devices. There are all sorts of brands, not just SheWe. There's GoGirl, Peasy and Tinkerbell. All allow women to stand and pee with minimal fuss and no bodily exposure. There are videos on YouTube of women trying the devices and being delighted with the way they work. Thank you, Radio 4, as ever, for being amazing. I've started to include all this sort of stuff now

because it cheers us all up in lockdown it makes us feel that we are doing something important and useful because I think all of us are questioning the meaning of life frankly at the moment aren't we Beth has just very kindly found out what the rules of golf say about what women have to wear

I think I'm right Beth I think you have to wear trousers. Look, we've got plenty of women who listen who play golf. Let us know what your golf club tells you about what you can wear on the course and how that impacts on whether or not

you can go to the loo easily. If you're playing 18 holes, that can be five and a half, six hours, can't it? So you're going to need to go. So let us know what you do. Right, that's the topic for another day. We are back tomorrow. My thanks today to Bev and to Gail and to Ruth and to Anna for coming in and helping Woman's Hour go out. And thanks to you for listening.

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's 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.