Psting in AIBU for traffic - Bristol mum and newborn have gone missing, please keep your eyes open if in bristol!

[KnitFastDieWarm]

Apologies for posting here but the Avon and Somerset police are running an urgent appeal for the safe return of Bristol mum Charlotte Bevan and her four day old baby, who have gone missing from a central Bristol maternity unit and haven't been seen for over 12 hours. PLEASE keep an eye out for her and phone the police if you see her - she's white, around 5'8, dark hair, wearing a black top, black trousers and hospital slippers or flip flops. Her baby is wrapped in a stripey blanket.

Hoping and praying for a safe return sad

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/03/mother-baby-missing-bristol-maternity-hospital

Nice to see that this thread has descended into completely inappropriate and unfounded speculation about pressure on the poor woman to breastfeed.

In the meantime a body has been found and no sign of the baby.

Good lord - this thread is so utterly tasteless. Speculating on a death? Bleating about personal experiences? How truly horrid. Imagine if this was you, or your sister or daughter. Would you want strangers online discussing the ins and outs and putting their thoughts across? really?

This thread had a purpose when it was aiming to spread the word about a missing person but now it's just rubbernecking. Yuck.

I hope the baby is safe.

I feel deeply, deeply affected by Charlotte Bevan's story. It could have been me, my friends, their children. It can be so easy to see yourself in her shoes, in the middle of the confusion and vulnerability that can hit after birth.

She and the little one are in my thoughts.

A woman is dead, a baby is missing. It's horrific. However this is all we know. The speculation about the whys is just awful.

I just read that police are concentrating solely on the place where they found the body in order to find baby.

My question is, why? If the baby hasn't been discovered immediately somewhere around the mother's body by now, isn't there a slight chance she could be elsewhere (i.e. mum put baby someplace safe?)

I know they are the experts, though.

I have too Altinkum.

saga it appears to be a vast area and probably difficult terrane which will take time to search. And it was dark until late in which will hinder search proceedings.

And caution has to be considered to any possible evidential scene.

the police will know which is most likely.

the fact that they are concentrating their searches on that area and are not making continued appeals for people to be on the lookout for a baby would indicate that they wouldn't be expecting the baby to be alive at this point. if there was an expectation or even the possibility the baby was alive the search for it would be frantic from the hospital down to the river with dogs etc and it appears not to be.

There is likely some more information out there which has not been revealed to the public and they have known what they're looking for for a while now.

Yes, that makes sense, WannaBe. I guess it is naive to be hopeful of such things.

Hoping the baby is found safe and well. Rip charlotte x

Wannabe that was my thought too. I can hear the helicopter from my office right now, but there's not much police activity except in that immediate area, which makes me fear the worst.

the baby was safe in the hospital. If she'd wanted it to be safe she would have left it there, surely.

and reality is that even if the baby had been left somewhere it couldn't possibly survive for nearly two days with no feed in freezing temperatures.

I'm another who is astonished that some people have made this thread all about 'the pressure to breastfeed' and all about them. How distasteful.

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who brought this thread to our attention. This is obviously a tremendously sad story - our warmest thoughts and best wishes go out to Charlotte's friend and family

We understand that people will want to talk about this, to share their experiences and condolences, but we would ask everyone to try and bear in mind that there is still a lot we don't know about this case, and it's probably best to keep speculation at a minimum. We will remove any posts that we think are beyond the pale - please do report anything you'd like us to have a closer look at.

Helium me too! Can people please stop talking about random Mothering issues? It's downright disrespectful.

Nobody knows any of the details.

I've asked MNHQ to delete my earlier post - It's absolutely wrong to bring our own issues into this and I apologise for doing so. It's not the time or the place.

The only thing that has been reported so far regarding the possible causes is that she stopped taking medication to breastfeed. If this report is accurate then at the very minimum a bad call was made by someone either to advise her to stop or at least not monitor whether or not she was continuing to take her tablets. The news is in the public domain and like it or not when it involves a public service it concerns us all and will be debated.

And yes people's personal experience is relevant because other women will have experienced situations where breastfeeding was prioritised above the mental health and welfare of a mother which may well be the case here.

There was a very interesting article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago saying that the differences in outcomes for breastfeeding mothers were probably caused by class and that the only thing that had been proven beyond doubt was that it made your child slightly less likely to suffer a stomach upset.

I don't believe for a moment people want this thread shut because they are concerned about this woman or her family. I think it's just that when something occurs which encourages women to share bad experiences of the methods used to encourage it and the tremendous pressure women are put under to do it, then there are always a lot of other women who want that debate shutting down.

Oh aermingers please stop going on about breastfeeding. This is not the thread for it, if it is something you feel strongly about the please start a separate thread. It's not about 'shutting down debate', its about acknowledging that we know nothing about this woman and to are making some huge leaps about what happened.

You could take a leaf out of KnifFastDieWarm's book.

There was a very interesting article in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago saying that the differences in outcomes for breastfeeding mothers were probably caused by class and that the only thing that had been proven beyond doubt was that it made your child slightly less likely to suffer a stomach upset.

I mean, WHAT has the above got to do with Charlotte Bevan at this moment in time?

Such sad sad news.

Such terribly sad news.

I find the speculation on this thread very distasteful though.

We don't know how unwell she was, and what support she was receiving.

People are commenting that she was on half hourly observations, and so the staff are to blame for letting her leave, yet all I've read has said she was seen at 2030 (not checked, seen) and then was not there at 2105.

Hospitals are busy places, if you saw a woman walking around cuddling a new baby you wouldn't necessarily know whether she was a visitor or a patient.

What has happened is incredibly shocking and sad, and it may become apparent that more could have been done, but at this stage we just don't know what's happened really, and why. I'm hoping that the baby is safe and well, and her family can find peace and comfort.

Terribly sad. The poor father. Night time is dreadful on a post-natal ward, if only he had been allowed to stay with her.