Grub Stake.
 

Gordon Brown has proposed that next year all pregnant women will get a one off £200 grant after the 29th week of pregnancy to buy and eat healthy food. Good idea Gordon except that you have got it all wrong.

The detractors of this scheme have crawled out of the woodwork with their objections with quotes like “the money is unlikely to be spent on healthy food but fags and booze.” They could well be right in some cases.

I am comfortable with the grant but what I am not comfortable with is when it is given. At 29 weeks it is far too late to start thinking about healthy eating. If unhealthy eating causes any damage to the unborn and it probably does to some degree, the damage will have been done by 29 weeks and few carrots and apples isn’t going to make any significant difference.

What our esteemed leader should have done is given the grant as soon as the pregnancy is confirmed so that the mother to be can embrace a healthy eating regime right away. Of course the mother could still use the cash on other things but that is her choice in the same way that the various child benefits are used.

There is one other point why giving the grant at 29 weeks is just about as ludicrous as you can get. Premature births. Just exactly how will healthy eating by the mother affect a premature baby?

Gordon Brown you are an idiot. Think with your brain and stop trying to buy votes. The public is not as gullible as you may think.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

i agree, it is a good idea but yes it should be given earlier in the pregnancy

Re: Grub Stake.
 

No, it's a very silly idea and just a vote catcher. Any pregnant woman who believes in healthy eating will already be doing it without a £200 grant. You can buy vegetables to last a week for the price of a couple of Big Macs with fries and meat and fish don't have to be the most expensive to be nourishing. If they're not eating healthily from the start, the handout won't change anything no matter how many weeks pregnant they may be.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

I agree with the grant in principle but maybe it should come with some education on healthy eating. If it is going to be given as you say it should be when the pregnancy is confirmed. You will always get people who don't look after theirselves properely during pregnancy and if they are given a nudge in the right direction it can't be a bad thing.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

This grant should be linked to Antenatal care. Many of the women who would spend this grant on drugs or alcohol also do not attend their appointments. There should be a system where the grant is given in stages at the attendence of clinic appointments, like the French child benefit system. That way, the woman at least gets some midwifery input/advice and the baby has regular check-ups for growth, anomalies, liquor volume and the plethora of other things which can affect the baby of an unhealthy mother.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

i'm sure someone told me a few months ago that pregnant women on the social get vouchers already to buy fruit and veg, anyone else heard this?

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Yes they do, it's a relatively new scheme called Healthy Start.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Are they worded so that they can't be used for anything else?

Re: Grub Stake.
 

i'm not being funny, and yes i'm on the social, i get now and always have got enough money to buy fresh fruit and veg, why oh why do they think this will be of any benefit? the social gives you enough money to have a healthy lifestyle already... i can see these pregnant women selling these tokens to buy fags and other rubbish

Re: Grub Stake.
 

You will always get some people who will sell this sort of thing on but I think the majority will use them for the purpose they are intended for and therefore mum is healthier so baby will be.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Do you really believe that the woman who has been stuffing her face with pies, chips, pizzas, burgers, etc. all her life will suddenly decide to eat her greens because she's got a grant from the government? Honestly, if you cost it all out, it's no more expensive to eat healthy food than instant rubbish, it just takes a bit longer to prepare.

I'd rather see proper cookery lessons brought back into schools. It just might benefit future mothers.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

id rather see two hundred pounds go
to the elder citizens those who more deserve and
who would appreciate

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Yes, they are but........ there will always be a way around things for those who want to abuse a system. I do think that some people get more than enough already and that these schemes are hardly likely to change people's long term eating habits or those of their children. This money could be put to far better use..... I wonder how many pies/fags/bottles of cider/rocks of crack £200 could buy?

Re: Grub Stake.
 

I agree there are always people who will abuse any system but if it was done like you said earlier in the thread maybe some of the people who don't attend ante-natal would start attending. I can't understand anybody who doesn't take advantage of the great health system we have got, they should make sure they take precautions to avoid getting pregnant if they don't want to look after the baby whilst it is in the womb.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

I also think that if the grant is to be given then it should be given earlier on in pregnancy but not too early i.e not at confirmation of pregnancy stage. Not a nice thing to think about, I know, but many pregnancies do end in early miscarriage (before 12 weeks) so the grant would be given and then not be able to be used for the purpose which it was intended for. I know that miscarriage is always a possibility but after 12 weeks there is a significant drop in the likelihood of this and yet it's still early enough to make a difference through healthy eating so maybe they could give people the grant at around the 12 week mark.
Could they not also make them only redeemable against healthy food like fruit, veg, etc and prevent people from getting beer and fags with them?:confused:

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Simple answer is no because we have retailers who will quite happily abuse any system in this country just as much as the person receiving the vouchers. A voucher is money in the till, they don't care what it is for.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

seems a sensible idea to me , used to enjoy scrounging the odd biscuit on the way home from skoo . ;) ;)

Re: Grub Stake.
 

That's another good point. This scheme should certainly be means tested.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

personally i think its a load of rubbish

Re: Grub Stake.
 

If vouchers were given on a weekly or monthly basis upon confirmation of pregnancy Lily, should a miscarriage occur they would be discontinued.

Of course a fairer distribution of the country’s wealth would remove the need for a grant in the first place.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Because if the scheme were started now by the time that the next election comes along people will have forgotten about it.

It’s just a cynical ploy to try and buy votes.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Re: Grub Stake.
 

There is just as much chance of the elder end of the population spending it on fags and booze than pregnant women. You cant tar everyone with the same brush. How can we say who deserves it the most??

Re: Grub Stake.
 

My experience is that supermarkets will only accept vouchers for the goods that they are intended for so buying fags and booze with them is a no, no in supermarkets.

Of course there is nothing to stop a voucher being sold to a neighbour who will then use them for the purpose that they were intended for. And as you point out there are smaller retailers who see the voucher as cash in the till and will accept them for any goods. But how many of them have decent range of fruit and veg?

If I remember correctly many years ago when child allownace was paid via a book at the post office, people had to produce the book to use the milk token to get their child’s free milk.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

lol its a womans perogative to change her mind JB ;) no seriously after reading everything that everyones put, they make sense more than i do, i was referring to the voucher system for the people on the social when i said its a load of rubbish JB

Re: Grub Stake.
 

There already is a scheme for those on income support etc
Free milk, infant formula, vitamins, fruit and vegetables factsheet : Directgov - Parents

When I was pregnant mid 60s 'welfare foods' applied to all pregnant women even though working. I got milk, iron capsules and concentrated orange juice.

Since the admin of a scheme exists it would be more prudent to extend it, rather than just chuck money out - which would be subject to misuse.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

I think it's a daft idea.

Just one point though - I think it's £120 not £200 as was reported earlier.

Any mother who is eating healthily will do so with or without that money. Anyone else will see it as a windfall and buy more fags and booze. I do not believe that it will make one jot of difference apart from the fact that the government will spend our well earned money on it and not on the things that really matter.

I thought Gordon Brown was sensible, this seems to be ridiculous.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

the free milk and baby formula has been going on for years

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Very true.

The real answer is to make sure that the country’s wealth is distributed more fairly then there would be no need for such schemes.

I have heard it stated at 20% of the population gains 80% of the created wealth. Those receiving telephone number salaries get regular increases as a percentage, which is way over and above the rate of inflation whilst the 80% get an inflation rate increase spread over two years.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

GB will do what he wants to do anyway, so its pointless having our say on this

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Or, if you work in the public services you get a payrise below the rate of inflation which is given in 2 stages. Although meant to start in April, nurses, midwives and professions allied to medicine, in England,have so far received sweet Fanny Adams.:(

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Just read a comment in todays paper about this. A young woman was saying that her mum had just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and had been advised to eat certain fruits and vegetables to help in her recovery. As the young woman asked will her mum be offered this extra money? Her last point being that pregnancy is a choice, cancer is not!!

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Seems like a good idea, altho' I do agree with those who suggest it should be "means tested" ... I am assuming that this is what we refer to as "geared to income." Canada has no national policy on this issue, altho' there is a mothers allowance cheque which goes out every month to all Canadians who have kids under 18. Provincial govts. have their own programs usually offered thro' municipalities. In Kingston we have a program called Better Beginnings for Kingston Children. Expectant mothers are offered free pre natal clinics and seminars, followed up with parenting classes after the child is born. They are given food packages, no money just food. But the programs are free, and those who attend are given taxi vouchers so that they can make it to the classes. There is a central facility, but satellite sites are set up in the poorer areas of town. And there are summer camps for kids. Not an ideal system, but it does some good.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Re: Grub Stake.
 

I think this system would be abused by some but agree if it was to come in surely it would be more beneficial from the start of the pregnancy.

Re: Grub Stake.
 

theres no way any body is going to spend a whole 200 pound on eat heatlthily... im pregnant myself and eating ealthily is obviously a huge deal to any pregnant woman but i know if i was to get the money i wouldnt spend it all on healthy food if i did the food wouldnt last very long would it

Re: Grub Stake.
 

a better idea would be to spread the money out over the period of the pregnancy... there are available coupons for 2.80 a week for fruit and vegetables for pregnant women but i dont think 2.80 is enough really

Re: Grub Stake.
 

Re: Grub Stake.
 

What happened to personal responsibility? I sometimes despair of the land of my birth. Are you all so steeped now in the government handout? Not that we don't have a fair amount of that over here. So corrosive.

Re: Grub Stake.