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People's stories

Age 37-39

Interview 32

Interview 32

Age at Interview: 39
Sex: Female
Background: Children: 1, aged 23 months at time of interview. Occupations: Mother- teacher and counsellor, Father- university lecturer. Marital status: married. Ethnic background: White British.

Brief outline:Mother who uses a wheelchair. Antenatal care from a special pregnancy unit because of her condition. Emergency caesarean. Serious complications following a mistake in managing her medication.

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She had good practical advice from her local hospital and a support group for parents with disabilities.
Print When did you find out about the disabled parents support group that you were talking about? There's a unit at the Disabled Service at the hospital that, that has a couple of qualified people who specifically look after disabled mothers, so I was able to go and try out some equipment, and they provided a beanbag that I could breastfeed from and yeah, I was able to hold this nine pound doll and put it back in the cot and I thought, “Oh there's no way I'm going to be able to hold a nine pound baby, that's really heavy.” And they said, “There is actually a network that disabled parents have started, so Disabled Parents International brings together parents from all over the world who are handling, being disabled and having children.” So that's actually been a great source of information, but there's also local agencies as well. Mmm, but none of those organise antenatal support? No they don't. Mmm. I think it's quite rare actually to be somebody in a wheelchair, and having a baby. There seems to lots of blind mothers, or deaf mothers, or learning disabilities, but the wheelchair seems to be quite unusual.

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