Parents' Room Advocacy

[Aviva]

Yesterday we had an odd experience in the shopping centre parents room. Hubby and I were changing Gwen while another mother was feeding her 2m old. She noticed the cloth nappy and started asking questions in extremely broken English and gesture. She wanted to know if Gwen was born by caesarian - yes. Was she breech - yes. Now I'm getting really wierded out. Turns out this 2m old was a breech caesarian and there was some concern about her hips, and the paediatrician was telling her to use cloth nappies. And she didn't know how to fold them etc.

So she was on the money about Gwen's birth but for the wrong reasons - Gwen's hips passed early testing and we were always going to use cloth.

I explained that sometimes they say use double nappies for bad hips and that I didn't have experience of that. But we demoed some folds and I showed her a snappi and how she had to stretch it, and tried to talk a bit about covers and liners and drypailing. My hubby feels I overloaded her given the poor English, but I didn't know where she was going to get the info. I asked if she had internet, she did. I asked if she could read English but she barely can and she didn't have anyone in the family who could read websites for her. So I didn't give her a list of useful websites, and I don't know where she is going to get any extra good info from. So while it was great to advocate and to inform someone new to cloth, it was also a rather unsatisfactory experience too.

Edited as I hit post by mistake before finishing.

[marnie]

Wow, well hopefully she was able to take enough from it to use some terry flats and covers! Maybe she will be able to ask some older family members or friends who used terrys a long time ago! Even if she just uses PVC pilchers she will still be using cloth and getting the advantage for her baby's hips (even if she doesn't get the "full" experience of modern cloth". Good on you for trying to help her out though!

[Beanie]

That sounds kind of sad. Well done for doing what you could to help her. Hopefully she'll be able to get further advice from someone she can talk more freely with.

It's one of those things where you wish you could find her again and come back armed with more useful info in her language!

[WB]

I've heard that there's a translater program that changes the text of all webistes, hopefully she find out about that first so she can surf the web

[Peach_Bums_Mum]

www.babelfish.com will interpret any website into any language from any language

[WB]

oh cool Hannah...I want to see what this site looks like in french

[Peach_Bums_Mum]

French?

[Candice]

hheeee heee hooor hooor.. is that the noise the french make ?? lol

Ow good girl on doing some advocacy anyhow.. I am such a looser, I couldn't leave it at that.. I would be on a mission with her lol

[Cheryl_v]

If it happens again, hopefully with someone who speaks better English so you know they understand, try and get them to use a sling as well. Baby wearing in an unstructured front carrier like a mei-tai makes the baby's legs sit in the correct position for hip development. When my first was born we were sent off to a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon about his hips and the ortho was very complimentary about me carrying him in the ABA mei-tai when I arrived. The Baby Bjorns and other ones with cardboard bits don't let the baby's hips sit in the right position and their weight presses on their crotch instead.

Cheryl

[Candice]

oww I did not know about that one!