In this year of years, mothers have experienced the most challenging circumstances: solo scans, solo births, isolation and a loss of family support. All the more reason to press ahead with Coventry City of Breastfeeding, my project for Coventry City of Culture 2021. It was an experience with massive highs and lows against a backdrop of restrictions, fear and uncertainty, I tried to create something worthy of the wise women of Coventry…
To launch City of Breastfeeding, tomorrow evening listeners can hear eight breastfeeding stories of Coventry and Warwickshire mothers.
Voluntary Arts in collaboration with BBC CWR Radio produced creative, oral storytelling workshops for mothers who may or may not have breastfed but who have a story to tell. The workshops were run by Rachel New, a radio producer and writer.
A baby’s brain is constantly making new pathways. 250,000 neurons are formed per minute in a fetal brain throughout pregnancy and that proliferation, migration, differentiation, synaptogenesis continue into the toddler years and pruning of these until puberty. Each baby’s personality, body, brain and trans generational inheritance is of course unique and dependent upon their DNA, yet their experiences and exposure to the world around them throughout pregnancy and in early life also all have an effect on them.
In my aim to bring The Holding Time Project to areas where breastfeeding is lowest, I came to appreciate the work of psychologist Dr Vicky Fallon. Dr Fallon is a young researcher in the field of maternal mental health but her collaborative approach, deep insight and experimental methodologies give her unique insight into the confusing […]
For this event I put together a slideshow, beginning with the story of my own struggles to breastfeed, then the rationale for the Holding Time still images, how these lead to the animation and installation. Finally I talked about the project website, the breastfeeding Hubs, the YouTube Channel interviews.
by Lucila Newell, October 30th 2017 Connecting with others, sharing stories, finding a role model is crucial to breastfeeding. Because breastfeeding is in crisis. Because it is highly idealised, but devalued in practice. And that can make you feel lost, lonely and unsupported. I felt like that. But myths, images and stories helped. They helped because they […]
The arguments for breastfeeding in terms of health are already won, but breastfeeding statistics remain impossibly low in the UK. How can this be? Because the barriers to breastfeeding are cultural, not medical but the majority of information about breastfeeding comes from the medical community. This viewpoint says that women should breastfeed, without acknowledging the personal and emotional struggles involved in doing so.