Baby Bonding, ASMR, Afghanistan, Eimear McBride, BMX Freestyle
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2021
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Some mums may take a while to bond with their baby after they're born. This can be for a variety of reasons and is in fact very common among new mothers. Journalist and writer Natasha Lunn decided to write about her experience of not falling in love with her daughter immediately. She joins Andrea along with Dr Karen Bateson, Head of Clinical Strategy and Development from the Parent Infant Foundation, to discuss the reasons why bonding may take a while for some women.
ASMR - or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response - is a relaxing, often sedative sensation that begins on the scalp and moves down the body. It's grown massively in the last few years, particularly during lockdown. What is the appeal behind it, and why do female voices perform particularly well? We hear from Dr Giulia Poerio and ASMR artist Sharon Shares.
In Afghanistan, news reports say that the Taliban are going door-to-door in places, taking girls as young as 12 and marrying them off to militants. With thousands of Afghans fleeing to the capital, Kabul, to escape the Taliban advance, Andrea speaks to Lynne O'Donnell, a war correspondent and columnist for Foreign Policy magazine.
Eimear McBride burst onto the literary stage with her first novel, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, which won both the Women’s prize for fiction and the Goldsmith’s prize. Two more celebrated novels followed and she has now written her first non fiction book, Something out of Place: Women & Disgust.
Charlotte Worthington won gold for Team GB in the BMX Freestyle event at the Olympics – the first time BMX has ever been represented at the games. Fresh from returning from Tokyo, Charlotte joins Andrea live from UK National Cycling Centre in Manchester.
Presented by Andrea Catherwood Produced by Frankie Tobi
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello, I'm Andrea Catherwood, and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:10.8 | Good morning. I want to hear from you this morning about your experiences of bonding with |
| 0:15.5 | your newborn baby. There is an expectation that mothers will feel instant and overwhelming |
| 0:21.6 | love and attachment. You might be surprised high-offent, that's not the way it works. |
| 0:26.9 | And are you a convert to this? |
| 0:28.9 | And what's not a bit weird to you, but it's called Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response |
| 0:41.4 | Better Known as ASMR. It is a growing trend in relaxation, the videos, or an internet |
| 0:46.8 | sensation. Does it work for you? Does it leave you cold? And if it's passed you by entirely, |
| 0:52.4 | we're going to be filling you in later on the programme. Do let me know. You can text |
| 0:56.4 | Woman's Hour on 84844 and text will be charged at your standard message rate. Do check |
| 1:01.3 | with your network provider for exact costs. On social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour, |
| 1:06.6 | or you can email us through our website. |
| 1:09.8 | Now there are terrifying reports coming out of Afghanistan about women and girls as |
| 1:14.0 | young as 12 being kidnapped by advancing Taliban soldiers and forced into sex slavery. |
| 1:19.4 | I'm going to be talking to a correspondent who's in Kabul. |
| 1:23.8 | And today, multi-award-winning novelist, Teema McBride, will be talking to me about her |
| 1:28.4 | latest book. It's non-fiction. In fact, it's a very hard-hitting exploration of the |
| 1:33.5 | way women and our bodies are viewed and portrayed. And I'm delighted to say that I'm going |
| 1:38.1 | to be talking to BMX freestyle Olympic gold medal winner, Charlotte Worthington. She's |
| 1:42.9 | going to be joining us live from her triumphant return to the UK National Cycling Stadium |
| 1:48.6 | in Manchester. |
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