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People's stories

Age 37-39

Interview 30

Interview 30

Age at Interview: 37
Sex: Female
Background: Children: 1, aged 8 months at time of interview. Occupations: Mother- mental health worker, Father- driving instructor. Marital status: married. Ethnic background: British, Pakistani origin. Read by an actor.

Brief outline:Normal first pregnancy. Found antenatal classes useful, but felt a women-only class might be useful for South Asian women. Chose to have an epidural for the birth.

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Her mother gave her some useful advice, but she also relied on information from parenting classes. (Read by an actor.)
Print And what other information did you get from the parenting classes that, what was the most helpful thing? What was quite useful is about - I know this might sound basic - but just about washing your baby and not to use too much of the soaps and the lotions. And, and I don't - like, because my Mum's like, when I went to stay with my Mum, she was like, you know, putting baby lotion on, "The skin's dry on your baby" and that. And it's best, from what I understood from the classes to leave, leave the skin alone, not put any lotion on it, because it can make it worse. It, I think they were saying that some children get eczema or something from that as well. And that all worked, because her skin I found was fine, I didn't put anything on it and she was fine with that. So that was quite helpful, otherwise I would have been putting loads of lotion on this baby and loads of soap and, and it would have ruined - or maybe just irritated her skin. Mmm. So sometimes what your family were saying, like your Mum in particular, was going against what you were hearing in the classes? Yeah. It looks like you were leaning more towards the kind of... Yeah, because it sort of made sense in the, in the sense that what they were saying is what exactly is in that lotion, really? And it's not the purest of the pure that you can put on your baby. Water's more pure, isn't it? And just a little drop of whatever in it is sufficient. And when I was washing my baby and that, I found it does work. It did help her skin. If it didn't, then I would be saying, “Well actually, it doesn't work." But my Mum did give me some useful information as well, because the baby had really sort of dry scalp on top, and she said, “Put Vaseline on, leave it for a bit, and then get a comb and comb it out, and then wash her hair. That way the scalp bits will come off”, and that worked. So that was like useful for me from my Mum as well. So I think it's just thinking for yourself, as well, what you think might be useful. And using your experience to decide. Yeah. Right [laughs].

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