Crisis Pregnancy Care Centres Report

‘It's not all single teen mums.  The squeezed middle need our help too.'

LIFE is reporting an increase in the number of clients turning to them for help whom many would think of as ‘middle class'.

Head of LIFE's Care Service, Kyla Taylor, says: ‘As the recession tightens its grip, more and more professional couples are turning to us for help when they realise their budget won't stretch to raising a child or adding to their existing family.”

Jon* and his wife Lucy* from London were, they say, “traumatised” when they discovered Lucy was carrying twins.  “I'd recently lost 75% of my work as a consultant and I thought we were dead in the water.  Without Lucy's salary I couldn't see how we could start a family, let alone have twins,” says Jon.

“I was in a really bad place.  I remember seeing an ad for LIFE on the underground one day and thinking, right, let's test this crew out!”  Jon went along alone to the LIFE Care Centre near Covent Garden, desperate for answers. 

“I was worried that, as a professional, the counsellors would wonder why I needed their help at all,” says Jon.  “But I couldn't have got it more wrong.  Sheila, the volunteer I saw there, was amazing.  She listened and never judged and completely got why I was so sick with worry.  I left there feeling a lot more positive than when I went in and, for the first time, I thought maybe we can do this.” 

Lucy went along to the Centre a few weeks later.  “I began to realise that we weren't alone,” says Lucy.  “They saw lots of couples just like us, and they were willing to support us, emotionally and practically, throughout the pregnancy.  I think from then on we knew what we had to do.

“We moved out of London and downsized, changing our lifestyles to live as cheaply as possible.  But it felt right and the support we received from LIFE was invaluable - even helping us out with equipment like cots and pushchairs.  But it was the emotional support that was so important.”

Lucy gave birth to a girl, 6lb 1oz and a boy, 5lb 11oz, on Thursday 7 July.  “They're all doing great and we can't believe how lucky we are,” says Jon.  “We are so incredibly grateful for the support from LIFE, who were there when we were panicking and not thinking straight.  We're determined that whatever equipment we've had, we're going to donate more back to LIFE so they can help more couples like us.”

For further comment please call Mary Lubrano on 07515 578591, e-mail marylubrano@lifecharity.org.uk or visit www.lifecharity.org.uk/need-help

 For the London Care Centre email London@lifecharity.org.uk or call 0207 240 1275

*not clients' real names