I promised you Tom...

It's a beautiful day here today - sun's shining and I've just had half an hour's walk, followed by twenty minutes on the train, followed by another half hour walk to get into work. The car seems to have given up the will to change gear, so I'm braving it on public transport. I used to love it, but it takes so long to get to work and I'm completely worn out now. It doesn't help that I got little sleep last night. After watching Desperate Midwives with lots of graphic images of birth, I then drifted off dreaming about Poppy being knocked over by a dog in a garden centre and her brain spluttering from the top of her scull, complete with a gush of fluid, just like a baby emerging into the world. And although I know we were in a garden centre, I was actually buying peppers ready to eat rather than grow. Most bizarre!? So little sleep, lots of walking, and hence completely knackered.

But I did promise you Tom. Well, we've got more than Tom since I made that rash statement. I heard through the grapevine that Tom Cruise has been having a go at celebrity women who talk openly about their postnatal depression and take medication for it. I think his main gripe was with Brooke Shields, and he is said to be of the opinion that she is using her PND as a way of covering up a flagging career. To be honest I knew nothing about her career, but I've since found out she's staring in a West End musical at the moment. Not exactly flagging, eh Tom?

I'm sure it will not please Tom, but celebrity mums suffering from postnatal depression seem to be popping up all over the place at the moment. It seems to be the celeb thing to have - used to be a toy dog they couldn't be seen without, then it was a baby, so I guess the logical next step is PND. It seems no celebrity mum is worth her salt if she doesn't have an interview in a national paper or magazine where she talks candidly about her battle with PND, how she faught bravely on and is now back to her beautiful and vibrant self and here's the glossy photos to prove it...

Take Elle McPherson. I read recently that she had PND so booked herself into a celebrity clinic for six weeks, and then hey presto! she was cured. If only we all had that luxury. I found it took something more like a year of hiding it from everyone including myself, followed by a complete meltdown, six months withdrawal from the world, medication, counselling and a slow, faltering return to normality is now just about setting in. Wouldn't it be cheaper on the NHS and employers if they sent all of us suffering from PND to a celebrity clinic for six weeks? The current way of dealing with the condition must be a huge drain on the country compared to what it would be if we all had Elle's miracle cure.

I take my hat off to Fern Britton (is that spelt right? Did I ever tell you I can't spell?). She did a special on Tonight with Trevor McDonald last night. And she was brilliant. She hit the nail on the head. She described perfectly, simply and honestly the reality of postnatal illness. Ok, she included a few celebrities in there, but that's just to pander to the British public's desire to hear it from the celebrity rather than the expert or the normal person - but she also told the stories of normal, everyday women, just like me, and how devastating and debilitating PND is for them.

Just to really up the tempo of depressing TV last night I rounded off with the third in the series of Desperate Midwives. The story of Snowy, Caroline and Eloise was, for me, up there with the electric chair for sheer inhumane treatment of people. The story goes, for those of you who didn't see it, Snowy was an alcoholic who was drying out - and doing so pretty successfully it seemed; Caroline had already had her first child taken off her at birth two years previously and put into care; and little Eloise was due any day now to be born into an uncertain future - because social services hadn't yet decided whether Caroline and Snowy would get to keep their baby.

Now ok, they were perhaps not the most promising looking parents on paper, but then what does that prove? The programme showed Caroline go through labour, remarkably calm and collect, considering they had by then decided they would take the baby away from her. You could see an instant love from her for Eloise, which I have to admit I didn't have when Lily was born. And she was absolutely devoted to her from the start. Elsewhere in that hospital there were no doubt babies being born to perfectly respectable parents who will go on in future years to abuse and mistreat their children, despite being apparently respectable, professional people that social services very rarely suspect of being in any way unsuitable to become parents.

So who are we as a society to judge who should get to keep their baby? Why should Snowy and Caroline have to go through that when the parents of children who get abused daily behind closed doors in leafy suburban neighbourhoods never did? If we look at the statistics and realise how much abuse of children does go on in a variety of settings, and on a lower scale, just downright bad parenting - how many of those parents had to wait to hear judgment on whether they would be allowed to keep their baby? If we are going to judge one couple, why not every other couple? Did anyone check whether Jessie what's-her-name from East Enders, should have the right to keep her baby? The newspapers were always full of stories of her having a drink problem. But we didn't take Tallulah away from her mother (Wallace, that's it, Jessie Wallace).

There must be a more humane way of checking that a baby's start in life will be a good one, and that it will be consistent and familiar and stable. Eloise was whisked off after three days to foster carers, where I am sure she was very well looked after, and Caroline was given access to see her and they will eventually reconsider whether they can be reunited for good. But how about setting up some kind of halfway home for families in this position? A place where mother and baby can stay together, establish breastfeeding, develop a bond and get to know one another in a way that is more likely to build the basis to a secure and lasting relationship. I'm not saying Caroline and Snowy will be the best parents in the world, but then again none of us are. I just felt sick that some people have that judgment made for them by other people, whereas some of us, regardless of our real capabilities, get to dive into parenthood with no prior training, no screening and no guarantee we will get it right either.

But I will end on a positive note. You're going to think I spent all last night watching TV, but I was doing some yoga during this last one - I caught the back end of Emmerdale too. It seems little Debbie had a homebirth, and I'm really sorry to have missed that (although it is a bit of a shame that the only homebirths we ever get to see on soaps are unexpected from teenage pregnancies - reinforcing the myth that homebirth is something 'abnormal'!). Anyway, I was really pleased to see Lisa encouraging Debbie to breastfeed her baby. Ok, so the little mite might have been born into the hell that is the Dingles family, and the mother may be only a slip of a lass herself, but both mother and baby will get longterm health benefits from breastfeeding if she keeps it up, and just to introduce the idea that teenage mums can breastfeed on a national soap is fantastic!!

So I'm happy for once, ITV gets the thumbs up from me. But now I must get some real work done...