Midwife Cath: The First Six Weeks author Cath Curtin releases new book After The First Six Weeks

A VETERAN East Melbourne midwife has become a legend among mums for her frank advice. About to release her second parenting book, Cath Curtin has slammed modern parenting methods as “load of bulls**t and a fear campaign”.

A VETERAN East Melbourne midwife has slammed modern parenting experts — saying their strict and harsh routines were a “load of bulls**t and a fear campaign”.

Cath Curtin, widely known as Midwife Cath, says the rise of mummy bloggers and cutbacks in maternal child health services has created a raft of so-called “experts” without the experience or knowledge to help first-time parents.

Curtin has delivered more than 10,000 babies and became famous in 2016 for her frank mummy bible The First Six Weeks, detailing simple and commonsense solutions for getting babies to sleep.

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Her second book After The First Six Weeks will be released tomorrow.

She said many things had changed since she delivered her first baby in the 70s — notably dads stepping up more, but also the new form of judgment popping up in the playground.

Now it’s all about “what pram you’ve got, how skinny you are, how the baby’s sleeping and if you’re breastfeeding”.

But one of the biggest problems, she says, is that mums aren’t being taught how to parent, due to reduced maternal and child health services since the 1970s and 80s.

“You need to be taught how to parent but (new mother’s groups) are leaving you to teach each other,” she said.

“So you go online and Mary-Lou from Minnesota is telling you what to do, or someone with two or three (kids) or just a bit of bravado says you’re doing the wrong thing and that’s a big problem.”

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Curtin said her desire to see less mums Googling parenting tips spurred her to write another book.

The mum-of-one also blasted Save Our Sleep author and parenting expert Tizzie Hall.

“Many of these women haven’t worked in the industry or don’t have experience with babies. Many don’t even have kids of their own,” Curtin said.
Curtin said she was all about “loving and feeding babies” at all costs.

She said she would never forget a woman she met in the 1980s, who had been told to turn away from her baby when she put him to sleep.

He died of SIDS that night, and the mum has never been able to forgive herself for not kissing her baby boy goodnight.

“Tizzie Hall tells people not to look at their babies and turn away and that breaks my heart,” Curtin said.

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“You’ve got to actually think about what these professionals are telling you — it’s a load of bulls**t, and it’s a fear campaign.

“We’re told that if you rock your baby to sleep, they’ll never learn to sleep on their own but I’m telling you, I fed my baby to sleep and now he’s 24 and sleeping (just fine).”

Cath’s Bath, Bottle, Bed routine encourages dads to take over the nightly bath routine and give the bubs a bottle a formula while mum sleeps.

She said while parenting was hard, her methods really did work.

“I’m not saying it’s like playschool and I get (annoyed) too,” Cath said.

“We all have those days where you’re really tired and don’t want to hear your baby cry anymore.

“Inside you’re saying shut up, but you need to hold it in.

“We have to create that bond between mother and baby and father and baby because when they’re teenagers and out of control, you have to go back to that bond.

“If it hasn’t been made, bad luck. There’s no going back to rebuild it.”

Cath Curtin has delivered more than 10,000 babies.

With her Catholic “Sound of Music upbringing” and living with seven older siblings, Cath admits she lived a sheltered life full of “a million dolls”, pony club and looking after her nieces and nephews as a teenager.

It wasn’t until age 17 when she faced a “crash course in the body” when starting her nursing placement at St Vincent’s Hospital.

She ran a ward of 36 surgical patients at Sandringham Hospital two years later and at age 20, Cath delivered her first baby, little Jane.

“I’d just not long told her parents I was a student midwife and really didn’t know what I was doing,” the 61-year-old laughs.

“Even today, I can still see the baby coming out and I can see her worried father looking at me thinking, she has just told me she has no idea what to do.”

Thousands of babies later, including Jane’s own babies, Cath’s had two knee replacements and has become accustomed to being put in a headlock, having her fingers bitten off, being punched and hearing women scream in the throes of labour.

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She’s always surprised by the sheer strength of women — but with the highs, comes the lows, including stillborn and death of mothers.

“When it’s sad, it’s tragic and we have to talk about that side more,” she said.

“Not too long ago, the babies weren’t shown to parents and were taken to graves where parents didn’t know where they were.

“They never recover … and there’s some really important research about the psychological benefits of keeping your baby at hospital for days if need be and taking photos with them.

“It’s confronting to many people but death is confronting and we can’t just ignore it.”

Cath is an advocate for natural birth and was integral in setting up the Birth Centres within Melbourne to promote hospital birth within a homelike environment.

She now travels the country to share tips with new mums who she says are thriving for accurate information.

Midwife Cath has also launched a parenting website to combat mummy bloggers.

Her book talks about introducing solids, wrapping babies, safety in the house, a revised bath routine, while also urging mums to “get back to the basics”.

“I’m all about getting the baby on the floor and having no bouncers, swings or gadgets because they just cost a lot of money and stop progressive development,” Cath said.

Ultimately, she just wants people to let go of the fear and do what feels right.

Cath Curtin is happy to say it how it is. Picture: Supplied

“The (hardest thing for mums these days) is the pressure to get your baby to sleep and sleep all night,” she said.

“The anxiety is out of control and it just wasn’t there when we raised our children.

“If your baby doesn’t sleep, rock them or put them in the bed with you.

“Babies need to be loved and that’s really it.”

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