Bringing Up Baby

Channel 4 are currently running a 4 part series where parents of newborns undergo an experiment, testing the various 'parenting styles' - from strict routine based approaches to constant body contact 'attachment parenting' stlyes.

The first episode this Tuesday left me reeling. A so called 'baby guru' who charges £1000 (yes that is a thousand) per day, subjected new parents and one day old babies to her formula for training babies to sleep through the night. This included no cuddling in between strictly timed feeds, no eye contact during feeds, leaving the baby in a pram in the garden for 3 hour stretches during the day between each feed and parking the baby in its cot for 12 hours between 7pm and 7am and not opening the door, regardless of how much the baby is crying.

The image of this vulnerable new human (who 24 hours previously had been enjoying constant warmth and contact inside its mother) alone and crying in its cot for 12 hours, haunted me the next day. I have no doubt that I was witnessing a form of child abuse on my screen, thanks to Channel 4. The ethics of this programme, let alone these draconian and outdated methods of parenting are so highly questionable that several people on Mumsnet (www.mumsnet.co.uk) have already said they have reported the programme to the NSPCC and Ofcom. An online petition has also been created at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/parentingshows

The impact of such parenting techniques is now well known - without touch, responsiveness and an adult to help regulate their internal states, babies brains do not develop normally. The result (many years on) is often severe depression, anxiety disorders, problems forming close relationships and other serious mental ill health in adulthood. For an excellent and accessible book on this read "Why Love Matters" by Sue Gerhardt.

Becoming a parent is an amazing and vulnerable time in ones life - parents need support and love to help them nurture little humans into the fulness of their being. They do not need books, people and programmes that advocate an ultimately selfish and brutal approach that seeks to limit the 'inconvenience' of baby's presence at great cost to their emerging sense of self. Many people who suffered a range of abuse in childhood will often say that the emotional element of the abuse was the hardest. The emotional neglect and abandonment of a baby - leaving it to 'cry itself out' for long stretches of time - is a deep abuse carried out on the most vulnerable, pre-verbal members of our society. Clearly it is an abuse that is still so acceptable that Channel 4 feel able to film it and broadcast it on our screens with impunity.