Leaving a newborn in a shopping bag.

[Eastie77Returns]

It's currently 2 degrees in my area. Last night it was 0-1 max. There are a dozen places you could potentially leave a tiny baby and someone chose to place him/her outside in a shopping bag.

The person who did this (no idea if it was mum, dad or someone else) should be charged. With what, I don't know. Attempted murder? I mean the baby was found by a dog walker, completely chance.

I'm sure the apologists will be out in force - whoever left the baby must be in distress, they need help etc. That may be true. But I cannot get my head around this.

All the stuff about this baby and people traffickers is feverish imagination. You do not understand people trafficking if you think this is a realistic possibility.

Charged with what? Being so absolutely terrified of the consequences that they gave birth alone, with no medical interventions?
No. That's a very old fashioned view. They need help. They may have mental health problems. Be homeless. Be terrified of parental wrath. There's many reasons.
No one comes out of this unscathed. Let's hope the authorities can help her.

Don't be ridiculous. Do you think any mother in their right mind would do this? Do you not think this person either had serious mental health issues or was very young or in an abusive situation and very afraid?
What good would charging her Do?
It's no deterrent because mothers who do this are not thinking straight.. you can't punish someone out of doing that. In fact if they think seriously they'll go to prison anyway they may be more likely to actually kill the baby and themselves.
Having experienced post partum psychosis myself I cannot tell you how terrifying it is.
That may not be what this mother was going thru but you can bet whatever she was going thru it will have been bad. Giving birth completely alone.. she was obviously extremely vulnerable

But you didn’t say that did you. You said whoever did this should be charged, and you were sure the “apologists will be out in force”

I didn't say the mother should be punished

No I know nothing about the subject I'm posting about
🙄
nada

I agree OP, leaving a newborn outdoors with the current weather then heading indoors yourself is attempted murder. They need to find the mother to see if there is any mitigation, but I'd be very surprised if the baby has come through this unscathed and is very very lucky to be alive.

Police update just now, she's been named Elsa, I assume because she was found in icy conditions but she's safe and well. The police say that she was less than an hour old when she was found and likely hadn't been there very long, thank goodness. They don't know who the Mum is.

Such a pity that the usual 'don't worry, we want to make sure you're okay' police conference is followed shortly afterwards by an unconnected two line news article saying 'a woman has been charged with child abandonment'.

They promise help but then quietly punish if they do come forward.

We badly need safe haven baby boxes imo. There will always be a small number of people who need to give up their babies anonymously for whatever reason and not having a safe place to put the baby will not stop that from happening. Leaving the baby in one of those locations being an exemption from prosecution for child abandonment could make a difference.

Agreed. People are getting their ideas from tv dramas.

WTF and I rolling back on? I said I didn’t know if the mother left the child in my first post and repeated that in my subsequent post.

We definitely need safe haven boxes, and for them to be well-publicised.

I think exemptions should be made for a woman who surrenders her child outside of a safe haven box but in a safe place.

Abandoning a baby exposed to the elements and at high risk of death should always be criminalised as child abandonment at the very least. Having a mental health issue (if present) does not exonerate someone from criminal responsibility but it can mitigate their sentence.

Quite often in cases like this the mother is waiting nearby to make sure the baby is found. A family friend was abandoned as a young baby at a lorry stop, the lorry driver who found her reported that a car was parked up nearby and when he picked her up the car suddenly started its engine and drove off.

The drawback to the baby box idea is that where would you put them?

Baby abandonment is (mercifully) very rare, and though a couple of sites may well cover those who are in London, there's a lot of the country where people might not easily be able to get to one. Unless you had lots, and I'm not sure that would work.

In the olden days, it would be the vicarage doorstep.

The best thing is that the baby gets adopted. I doubt they will find the mother or she would come forward. I really hate to speculate but imagine if this baby is handed back to her to end up being one of those toddlers killed by neglect by their mother and boyfriend. She may have been coerced or very young. Those things add to the worry about giving the baby back to her. I am still not over that toddler that died alone in the week after Christmas starved to death and his mother blaming SS. Are lessons ever learnt?

Go walk a mile in her shoes, before you judge. The events leading up to this could be equally as sad and tragic because I don't believe women give up their babies because all is fine and rosy in their life.

True but that does not mean 1 hour old baby left in the cold was not in a dangerous situation. The focus on thread is on the distressed parent but not on a baby who just came in the and left alone in the street.

Mothers who do this are almost always desperate. My heart goes out to her, whoever she is - I doubt she wanted the baby to die more wanted it out of her life for some reason.

Most likely she wanted the baby to be cared for. Thank goodness the infant was found. I hope the mother is so she too can get the care she needs.

The thing is it won't have mattered if it was cold or not, she gave birth when she did and perhaps needed/wanted to hide that right now, so that night was the night it had to be. People without experience of kids don't tend to know how differently they react to cold etc and how much more delicate they are - you think it's obvious but it isn't.

There are places in other countries where mothers can leave babies safely through a hatch or something. It's not the mother's fault that such a system isn't available here. The current system simply doesn't allow for birth parents to relinquish newborns - there is unending pressure for parents to keep their babies unless there are child protection issues. Most social services don't even have a department for birth parents to make contact and arrange adoption, they are all focused on child protection or disability services.

The police say that Elsa was only abut an hour old when found

Goodness only knows what desperation was the driving force.

At least the chosen spot was one where the expectation was for swift discovery (which is what happened)

I know this is an old-ish thread.

Posting because there was an update from the BBC news today

Abandoned baby Elsa is third newborn deserted by same parents - BBC News

This is really sad and so very disturbing.

Thank goodness all 3 babies survived.

I originally started this thread and was roundly condemned as a heartless person for failing to understand the “desperate mother” who abandoned baby Elsa (even though I made no mention of her mother as I had no idea who left the baby). I won’t comment further except to say I hope the parents of these children receive help.

If it's a woman with no problems who just wanted to get shot of the baby perhaps because she has been unfaithful then I agree she should be charged.

It's not the 1950s, or a Catherine Cookson misery novel you know

Came to see if this had been bumped. I wonder what sort of circumstance could cause that three times?