OLD The Media

September 26th 2007
The Independent, page 23
N.I.C.E. Water birth 'provides the safest form of pain relief'
2007/051 NICE publish guidelines to improve women's experience of labour

August 10th 2005
The Independent: Article

Mother in Plea for breastfeeding law
Historical Royal Palaces (which runs Hampton Court where Margaret was told to stop breastfeeding)
"All visitors should have their chests covered when inside ..."
"We have many visitors of all ages and nationalities who find women breastfeeding either offensive or an unwelcome distraction."
"The mother-and-baby room is the only area of the palace where we can guarantee ... they will not disturb any visitors."

July 12th 2004
The Guardian: Letter

Rape survivors are vulnerable and find it difficult, often impossible, to speak about the violence they have suffered. The law acknowledges this, granting rape victims anonymity. Women who have been raped who seek asylum in Britain are even more vulnerable. Deeply traumatised, they face the additional and frightening hurdle of being interviewed by officials in totally unfamiliar surroundings and often through translation.Yet according to David Lammy, the minister for constitutional affairs, the government is not "persuaded that victims of rape or torture, however defined, should be regarded as being in a category of vulnerable people".

The asylum bill will deny rape victims the right to legal aid and therefore full representation. Like Andrew Phillips, who opposed this sexism in the Lords, we find this an "astonishing proposition". It is a malevolent and life-threatening erosion of rape victims' rights.

Sin Evans, Women Against Rape
Cristel Amiss, Black Women's Rape Action Project
Ian Johnston, Director, British Association of Social Workers
Sheila Kitzinger
Ian Macdonald QC
and 16 others

May 16th 2004
The Observer: Angry midwives defy order to inform on asylum seekers.

Dec 28th 2003
The Guardian: Bottle-fed babies'face higher risk of heart death'

Dec 28th 2003
The Observer focussed in two articles and an editorial on the midwife shortage. It described how mothers are neglected when in labour and birth is turned into a frightening ordeal. In one piece Jo Revill highlighted the closure of small midwife-led units where women are more likely to have continuity of care, and the removal of staff from them to large hospitals “There is now a body of research which shows that pregnant women who have access to the same midwife throughout their pregnancy are less likely to need a Caesarean”. Linda Phipps, The National Childbirth Trust Chief Executive, says that birth in a small unit is “just as safe, if not safer, than in a large hospital. There are fewer interventions, and the women themselves enjoy more continuity of care.” The article continues: “Childbirth Guru Sheila Kitzinger, who has tried to help many women traumatised by the birth of their children, argues that, when the contact with the professionals is fragmented, the entire birth becomes inherently less safe.
`Everything depends on the people who help and the quality of their relationship with the mother,'
she wrote recently.
`Doctors, and above all midwives, accompany women through a major life transition. How they do this affects the way a mother feels about herself, her baby and her partner for long after the event. That is what makes women who are disempowered in birth, and distressed afterwards, feel so cheated. Personal care is not a luxury; it is vital for safety.'”

Nov 8th 2003
Surprise appearance in The Independent!
The political journalist Robert Fisk wrote a piece describing how he saw in the window of a bookstore in the Lebanon a display of books that included a vicious propagandist anti-Semitist tract called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This was originally produced by the Tsarist police and includes stories of child cannibalism. It was exhibited, rather inappropriately, in a display of books about child care. Right at the front, directly below this ghastly book, is a copy of my New Pregnancy and Childbirth. I seem to keep strange company.

October 4th 2001
Sheila co-signed a letter published in The Daily Telegraph Comment page about responses to the New York atrocity.

Breastfeeding past 4 months and arterial stiffness?

March 2001
Misleading reports in the press implied that it is risky to breastfeed for longer than 4 months because it may lay the foundations of heart disease in later life. This follows a paper published in the British Medical Journal about which there has been lively debate on its website. Read the discussion - and keep breastfeeding!

September 2001
At last the debate has reached the printed edition of the BMJ.

Unhappy experiences of maternity care

March 2001
A survey by the website motherandbaby.co.uk found that of 2000 women questioned only 8% gave birth without drugs or surgical interventions, more than half would not go back to the same hospital to have another baby. Only 4% saw the same midwife for their antenatal appointments and had her present at the birth.