I have a client who is married with 4 very young children. She is profoundly deaf, can sign but uses lipreading as main communication. She receives MRC and LRM DLA. She has recently had new baby and applied for supersession to get HRC which was refused. She states she needs to be woken regularly by husband so she can see to baby and other children, it is often the case that all four wake up most nights. Is it worth going forward with the appeal, any help gratefully received.

It is absolutely worth going ahead with the appeal. Her husband alerting her is attention in connection with the bodily function of communication (the substitution priniple - see Mallinson, Fairey - he acting as a substitute for her impaired hearing).

The attention, of course, will need to be reasonably required. So, for instance, if her husband has to get up for work each morning and thus needs as much sleep as he can get then it may be unreasonable to expect him to get up several times a night to see to the child/children. Even if it was reasonable to expect him to get up then they it would be reasonable to argue that they should take it in turns.

However,the mother's attention needs cannot be counted in respect of a child who him/herself gets DLA for the relevant day or night time needs.

Sorry, should have said that it is worth going ahead with the appeal on its merits as outlined. The risk to the existing award needs to be considered of course.

a thought: if she is breastfeeding the new infant, can you argue that she needs attention with a bodily function at night (in that, as i understand it, failing to express - i.e. by feeding teh baby - is not good. It's her bodily function - (expressing milk) - not the baby's bodily function (drinking the milk).

That argument could only work if she had been or was about to have been breastfeeding for 3 months and would continue to do so for the next 6 months. I can't see the DWP going for it, sadly, but even if they did or you pulled off a great win at appeal any award on the basis of needing to breastfeed would inevitably be only short term.