Channel 4 show Bringing Up Baby draws flak for child exploitation

24 October, 2007:

Yet another reality television show in Britain has invited widespread wrath from childcare professionals as well as the general public.

Childcare professionals have used such harsh terms as “exploitative,” “irresponsible,” and “dangerous" to describe the Channel 4 show Bringing Up Baby.

The Channel 4 ‘parenting series’ asks six families to compare techniques, used in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, with their newborns.

The tough approach used by Claire Verity, 41, who the program says is known as the Cruella de Vil of the baby world, includes leaving the babies outside to get fresh air, cuddling them for only 10 minutes a day and ignoring crying.

Claire’s methods have triggered an angry response from parents, who have condemned the maternity nurse on internet chatrooms as well as complained to Britain’s television watchdog Ofcom and the Government.

Renowned childcare expert Gina Ford sent a letter of complaint to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) about Claire Verity’s controversial methods.

Both the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the National Childbirth Trust have called on Channel 4 not to commission the program, arguing that experimenting with babies in the name of entertainment is unethical.

The Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association and the union Unite jointly called for a new watchdog to oversee any reality program involving babies. They termed Bringing up Baby was “dangerous” in its treatment of the families.

A group of professionals and academics wrote in a letter to The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “We are alarmed, as academics and professionals, that Channel 4 is broadcasting such an exploitative parenting series.”

Many of the techniques used in the program are contrary to scientific knowledge of brain development in very young babies, they alleged.

They went on: “That anyone should be billed as an expert and allowed to promote ideas such as not making eye contact with babies and not comforting them in distress is at best irresponsible and at worst dangerous. To see these theories being put into practice with real babies in the name of entertainment is worrying. We call on all production companies to stop making programs that give irresponsible advice and turn the suffering of tiny babies into adult entertainment.”

The letter to The Daily Telegraph has been signed by seven individuals, including the chief executive of the Family and Parenting Institute, the chief executive of Parentline Plus, and the chairman of the Association for Infant Mental Health UK.

However, Channel 4 has dismissed the allegations that it has been irresponsible, saying, “we take the welfare of children in this, as in all series, extremely seriously.”