大象传媒 Scotland - 大象传媒 Scotland - Your eyes are deceiving you: these aren鈥檛 real babies 鈥� the unsettling but moving world of 鈥榬eborns鈥�

Your eyes are deceiving you: these aren鈥檛 real babies 鈥� the unsettling but moving world of 鈥榬eborns鈥�

18 January 2018

To get the feedback from happy customers, it is actually rewarding

Janice Valentine

Carefully washing the component parts. Slowly applying coat after coat of paint. Rooting hair onto a tiny head, a single strand at a time.

A huge amount of skilled effort lies behind the creation of reborn babies — the lifelike dolls created by artists like Janice Valentine.

She says people collect the dolls for a variety of reasons, including the loss of their own children.

Inside the World of Reborn Babies

Janice makes a living creating incredibly life-like dolls.

Tragedy is a motivating factor behind some purchases.

‘One of the times they'd lost a baby.’

‘I really didn't enjoy the experience, my heart went out to the person but it sort of affected me as well.’

‘I was then asked again to do the same again.’

‘I don't know if it was for the same reason but I said no because I didn't want to go through it again.’

Janice has customers all over the world, stretching from her home town of Motherwell to Australia. Each dolls sells for hundreds of pounds and takes at least a week of full time work to produce.

Every single time I send a doll I鈥檓 on tenterhooks because I鈥檓 thinking, 鈥榃hat are they going to say, what if they don鈥檛 like it鈥�?

Janice Valentine

What attracts someone to a particular doll?

‘I think a lot of the time people think it looks like my grandson or my son and they've I've got to get it. Even the ugly babies sell, with squashed up wee faces!’

But not everyone who sees her work is complimentary.

’A lot of people get freaked out. There are people who can be downright nasty but I'm used to it. They're doing no harm.’

‘The more realistic they are, the more freaky they are.’

Newcastle University has researched the use of doll therapy

These type of dolls are also used as form of treatment in care homes.

Research has found that dolls can be used to support people with Alzheimer’s or dementia.

One care home in England reported that reborn doll therapy led to a massive reduction in the number of patients using psychotropic drugs, .

The implementation of this type of treatment has met with some difficulties, however, with both care home staff and family members .

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