Mum Star

A young mum was thrown off a bus and accused of indecent exposure for breastfeeding her six-week-old baby, Emily.

Amy Wootten, 25, was travelling home to Stockport on a Bristol First bus with her daughter, Emily, when she was asked to get off at the next stop by the driver, who threatened to call the police if she didn’t.

She was told by the bus driver that someone had complained that she was indecently exposing herself. The driver told her to stop or to leave the bus. Concerned that if she simply stopped feeding her, Emily would scream and cause more people to complain, Amy felt she had no choice but to get off the bus. She was left at a stop which did not have a shelter, in the rain, twenty minutes’ journey from home.

Amy was left feeling humiliated and angry.

First bus company spokesman, Karen Baxter, said drivers would be given guidance to prevent similar incidents in the future, commenting, “We are aware of the incident that occurred and have already expressed our sincere apologies to Miss Wootten for the distress caused as a result of it. We have launched an investigation into exactly what happened.”

A new survey of over 1,200 mums carried out by Mother and Baby with NCT support, discovered that 60 per cent feel that the UK isn’t breastfeeding friendly. Sixty five per cent felt so strongly about it that they don’t even intend to try breastfeeding because they feel too self-conscious about people staring at them.
Of mums that did choose to breastfeed, two thirds said feeding their baby in public has been a stressful experience. Staggeringly over half (54 per cent) have been asked to move on from a restaurant, cafe or coffee shop and 30 per cent have been asked to move in a shopping centre.

Thirty five per cent of women have been forced to feed their child in a toilet, nearly half have fled to their car and some even admitted to feeding in a cupboard!

In Scotland, however, it has been a criminal offence since 2005 to ban breastfeeding in cafes, restaurants, pubs, shops or public transport. There is currently no such law in England and Wales.

There was a time when Denise Van Outen was viewed by the nation as the ever single girl, fun and free never to settle down. She had a couple of high profile relationships but never really seemed the type to get married and have a family. And then she met Lee Mead on the Any Dream Will Do reality TV show and romance blossomed. It was just a short time later that she announced that she was expecting her first child with Lee. The nation was generally pleased for the Essex girl, she relishes pregnancy and is positively blooming. She seems to have taken to the up and coming mother mood like a duck to water and has even released her own maternity range for Liverpool based clothing retailer Very.co.uk

Very.co.uk already has a team of celebrity designers so Denise will be joining the likes of Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby when the DVO maternity range is released in late March 2010.

The rang consists of 16 pieces including a black and blue stretch tube dress, a black jumpsuit, hoodies and cropped pants and an empire bow dress.

The whole team behind Very.co.uk is very excited to release this new range of clothing…”We are very pleased to have Denise on board. Our customers have been asking for an accessible, easy to wear maternity range and we feel that they will be very pleased with Denise’s collection.” Said Brand Director, Gareth Jones.

It seems that Denise has finally settled down and is really embracing everything about being pregnant.

We can all remember the times when during half term we would go off exploring, tree climbing and creating our own adventures. Unfortunately for many of us now letting our children wander around unsupervised is too much. This means that children are often stuck at home or near the house and you will constantly hear the moan of them being bored. It is particularly hard to keep all the children entertained if you have a range of ages. However we have compiled a list of ways to keep your children happy for a whole week!

Monday – Why not make Monday a cooking day? Get all of the children involved in making something special for dinner and maybe even some cakes or cookies for dessert. They will love it & you get dinner ‘made’ for you.

Tuesday – Why not have this as a day out of the house? Go swimming or take them to the park.

Wednesday – A day at home. You could have a dvd day on the sofa with some sweets and treats and their favourite dvds. Or a picnic in the living room often goes down well with children

Thursday – Another day out. See if there are any friends that they can play with. Get a group of you together and go to the park or the woods. Your children will love seeing their friends

Friday – A day in! Let’s have a tidy day. The child with the tidiest room gets a prize. Put some music on so they can dance around and have fun whilst they tidy. This is fun & practical

Saturday – As they have done so well at the tidying, why not take them out the cinema? Maybe cinemas do cheap ‘kids club’ viewings on a Saturday morning so you won’t break the bank

Sunday – A rest day, visit grandparents, enjoy a nice dinner together and get their things ready for school the next morning.