oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2002
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Article from The Times:
September 05, 2003
Empathy Belly means boys are left holding the baby
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent
TEENAGE boys are to find out what it means to get a girl pregnant; by using a water-filled fat suit that allows them to experience the physical discomforts of carrying a baby. Secondary school children in Manchester will be the first to try on the Empathy Belly, which simulates 20 physical symptoms of carrying a baby. These include shortness of breath, increased blood pressure and lower back ache, not to mention the waddling gait and change in sexual self image that can result from a 30lb weight gain.
Its American makers also boast that it will also induce;fatigue, irritability, and much, much more! Erica Powell, a youth worker with Barnardos in Manchester, said that she hoped that its use would help shatter some romantic illusions youngsters can associate with pregnancy. She intends to use the £940 pregnancy simulator with schoolchildren aged between 11 and 14 in the deprived Benchill area of the city, where the rate of teenage conception is 49.8 per 1,000 teenage girls; the national average is 43.8.
"We have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country. I hope that it will help the young people realise that when you are pregnant, or wearing an Empathy Belly, it's not always that easy," she said. "It's not a very glamorous feeling. Bending down, for example, can be quite hard."
Ms Powell said that she hoped that boys would get a feel for how much extra weight women had to carry when pregnant. "The girls," she added, "would have a chance to see what they looked like when they were carrying extra weight." "Most girls don't realise what it would be like to be fat,"she said.
Ms Powell plans to start using the Empathy Belly this term with Year Eight pupils, aged 13, during teenage pregnancy prevention sessions she holds in local secondary schools. She already uses "virtual babies" life-sized models that emit a loud, prolonged and realistic cry if they are not fed and changed regularly.
"With the virtual babies some of them can't cope with being woken up in the middle of the night and others can't cope with supporting the baby's head and holding it properly, but others cope really well. Whether they can cope or not, none of them really like it," she said.
"Using simulators allows you to say to them: "How to do think a mother feels when she has to go to the shops with her baby? How do you think a pregnant woman feels?" The idea is to show them exactly how it feels and then to use this as a basis for discussion and information."
The Empathy Belly simulates the effect of pregnancy through the use of a rib belt and positioning of weighted components: lead balls are inserted to produce the feeling of the baby's limbs sticking into the mother's rib cage and a sandbag attached under the belly presses on the bladder.
It was originally developed to help men increase their sense of involvement with their pregnant partner. The user manual says: "Realising first-hand that her discomforts are genuine and that pregnancy requires significant effort and adjustment on the women's part, expectant fathers invariably increase their appreciation, communication and supportive behaviour."
It is widely in use in teenage pregnancy prevention programmes in America, where paediatricians say that one session with the Empathy Belly can be worth more than an entire lecture on the subject.
"I can't play football wearing this lot" ANDREW BRIDGE, 15, who supports Manchester United and wants to be a builder, found out yesterday that being pregnant isn't much fun. He had donned a gallon and half of warm water, two heavy lead weights and an ugly stone-coloured canvas contraption with Velcro straps called the "Empathy Belly Pregnancy Simulator".
At the risk of some ribbing from his friends in the playground, he agreed to model the ungainly equipment designed to impress on teenagers exactly how pregnancy transforms the body. Andrew, whose mother works at Family Action Benchill in Wythenshawe, where the simulator will undergo trials, insisted that he has no plans for early parenthood. Trying it on had only reinforced his view.
"It is uncomfortably heavy. I like playing football and tenpin bowling. You would not be able to do that wearing this lot. I prefer to be a boy," he said. Andrew, a pupil at Parklands High School, was watched with some concern by his mother, Karen, 38, a family support worker, who has four children, aged 21 to six. She believed that it was a salutary experience.
"If boys get a chance to wear it then, as a mum, I think that would be a good thing," she said. "They can get to understand at least something of what a woman goes through.
*****
I saw one of these over 10 years ago. Anyone tried one?
Og
September 05, 2003
Empathy Belly means boys are left holding the baby
By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent
TEENAGE boys are to find out what it means to get a girl pregnant; by using a water-filled fat suit that allows them to experience the physical discomforts of carrying a baby. Secondary school children in Manchester will be the first to try on the Empathy Belly, which simulates 20 physical symptoms of carrying a baby. These include shortness of breath, increased blood pressure and lower back ache, not to mention the waddling gait and change in sexual self image that can result from a 30lb weight gain.
Its American makers also boast that it will also induce;fatigue, irritability, and much, much more! Erica Powell, a youth worker with Barnardos in Manchester, said that she hoped that its use would help shatter some romantic illusions youngsters can associate with pregnancy. She intends to use the £940 pregnancy simulator with schoolchildren aged between 11 and 14 in the deprived Benchill area of the city, where the rate of teenage conception is 49.8 per 1,000 teenage girls; the national average is 43.8.
"We have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country. I hope that it will help the young people realise that when you are pregnant, or wearing an Empathy Belly, it's not always that easy," she said. "It's not a very glamorous feeling. Bending down, for example, can be quite hard."
Ms Powell said that she hoped that boys would get a feel for how much extra weight women had to carry when pregnant. "The girls," she added, "would have a chance to see what they looked like when they were carrying extra weight." "Most girls don't realise what it would be like to be fat,"she said.
Ms Powell plans to start using the Empathy Belly this term with Year Eight pupils, aged 13, during teenage pregnancy prevention sessions she holds in local secondary schools. She already uses "virtual babies" life-sized models that emit a loud, prolonged and realistic cry if they are not fed and changed regularly.
"With the virtual babies some of them can't cope with being woken up in the middle of the night and others can't cope with supporting the baby's head and holding it properly, but others cope really well. Whether they can cope or not, none of them really like it," she said.
"Using simulators allows you to say to them: "How to do think a mother feels when she has to go to the shops with her baby? How do you think a pregnant woman feels?" The idea is to show them exactly how it feels and then to use this as a basis for discussion and information."
The Empathy Belly simulates the effect of pregnancy through the use of a rib belt and positioning of weighted components: lead balls are inserted to produce the feeling of the baby's limbs sticking into the mother's rib cage and a sandbag attached under the belly presses on the bladder.
It was originally developed to help men increase their sense of involvement with their pregnant partner. The user manual says: "Realising first-hand that her discomforts are genuine and that pregnancy requires significant effort and adjustment on the women's part, expectant fathers invariably increase their appreciation, communication and supportive behaviour."
It is widely in use in teenage pregnancy prevention programmes in America, where paediatricians say that one session with the Empathy Belly can be worth more than an entire lecture on the subject.
"I can't play football wearing this lot" ANDREW BRIDGE, 15, who supports Manchester United and wants to be a builder, found out yesterday that being pregnant isn't much fun. He had donned a gallon and half of warm water, two heavy lead weights and an ugly stone-coloured canvas contraption with Velcro straps called the "Empathy Belly Pregnancy Simulator".
At the risk of some ribbing from his friends in the playground, he agreed to model the ungainly equipment designed to impress on teenagers exactly how pregnancy transforms the body. Andrew, whose mother works at Family Action Benchill in Wythenshawe, where the simulator will undergo trials, insisted that he has no plans for early parenthood. Trying it on had only reinforced his view.
"It is uncomfortably heavy. I like playing football and tenpin bowling. You would not be able to do that wearing this lot. I prefer to be a boy," he said. Andrew, a pupil at Parklands High School, was watched with some concern by his mother, Karen, 38, a family support worker, who has four children, aged 21 to six. She believed that it was a salutary experience.
"If boys get a chance to wear it then, as a mum, I think that would be a good thing," she said. "They can get to understand at least something of what a woman goes through.
*****
I saw one of these over 10 years ago. Anyone tried one?
Og