Hour old newborn abandoned

[SerendipityJane]

Hour old newborn abandoned in this weather. I have no words, only tears.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68025769

I strongly disagree with you, in the uk giving your baby up, having an abortion, is clearly something that is easily accessible .

this is someone who felt unable to act. Be it due to age, relationship, religion, but this is not the uks fault, we didn’t let anyone down, the support is absolutely there.

suggesting this happened as uk services are lacking is very wrong. Help is at the end of the phone, but we are a free society, we can’t be monitoring every woman to ensure if they fall pregnant we know and then if they need support they access it,

So true, or possibly the family are complicit, they’ve kept it secret and taken the baby as soon as it was born or she’s in an abusive relationship and her partner has taken it. God knows. I just hope she’s not in a bad way of any kind, although this is obviously going to be horribly difficult for her.

Dumping a baby like a piece of trash is inexcusable. In a plastic bag of all things!

No matter what was going on in the mothers life. At the very minimum she could have made more of an effort to increase the babies chance of survival. Why couldn't she have left it at a bus stop or corner shop?

She should be punished. She was lucky the baby was found by someone who actually gives a shit. Her own issues are secondary.

Her issues are all.

Her issues are more important than whether the baby lived or died?

I would think she wasn't thinking straight at that point. Ever been desperate and scared?

So your saying her fear for herself was more important than the baby living?

Perhaps it was at that moment and I won't judge her for that.

Disgusting.

Oh troll off.

Like some knitting needles, @sockmuncher?

You've had a sheltered life if you don't know what fevered desperation is.

The whole situation is tragic - the baby will be affected, losing your mother is a huge wound. The mother will likely never forget and is probably traumatized. Giving birth is bad enough, without having no help and being so desperate that you can't look after him or her and abandon them.

Why is everyone jumping to conclude empathy for the mother? It may be a case of her being mentally unstable, but it is also, just as likely, that she simply didn’t want or care for the baby, and was being heartless. She could be a criminal. There are some people out there, who are simply, shitheads. It could be either. This woman or man who abandoned the baby, God knows how the situation arose, has catastrophically risked a baby’s life, almost killed them. This is NOT acceptable, and an attempt to murder a poor baby.

It may be a case of her being mentally unstable, but it is also, just as likely, that she simply didn’t want the baby,

How do you know it's just as likely?

Baby boxes are not a sensible solution. For one thing this happens so rarely in the UK that it would be a total waste of resources to build them and have alert systems in place for every single one that were foolproof and everyone with access to the alert system was fully trained etc - it's just not a good use of resources. It's also very likely to fail for the above reason. Police officers may get training on 'the baby box' once in their career and never need to use it or they might need it 20 years after they had the training - the system/software may have changed in that time, the baby is more likely to come to harm by the baby box system failing than they are by being left in a public place easy to find. When was the last time you heard of an abandoned baby that wasn't found by a member of the public in time?

It sounds like the mother didn't give a shit about what happened the baby. She's no doubt over the moon it's not her problem anymore.

The baby will grow up to see how lucky it is it's not got to see her again.

If she was just a woman who didn't want the baby she would likely have given birth in hospital and walked out without the baby. It happens. This mother didn't give birth in a hospital. That in itself indicates something very wrong.

Seems that 25% of abandoned babies die, @RowanMayfair

https://www.nidaa.nl/images/sherr-2009.pdf

But I suspect you're right about the baby boxes. Still, 3 babies in 3 years in one borough makes you think that maybe it's a good idea there.

When this headline appeared on my phone I assumed the worst

I’m glad the baby was found in time as it was distressing to read

@sockmuncher goodness gracious me, you think she's over the moon at not having the baby?

I'm impressed you know her so well since you know what she's thinking. Why didn't you call for help earlier?

You make it extremely clear you know nothing at all about adoption though.

How does everyone know it’s because she was in an unfit state of mind, and shouldn’t be held accountable? We don’t know. It could even be the father or another family member who chained up the mother and did this to the baby. But it’s not right to assume the mother can’t be blamed. Leaving a baby in a plastic bag is an attempt to murder. ALL possibilities, including a decision from the mother, should also be considered.

It could be ruthlessness. But as far as I'm aware almost all women who abandon babies do it because they feel they have no other option.

https://orphancare.org.my/reasons-why-parents-would-abandon-their-babies-how-to-combat-this/

Most, not quite all, of the reasons center around desperation.

This is distressing and reminds me of a few years ago a poor baby was left in the woods and died.

I find this unforgivable. As others have said, there are safer places for the baby to be left. Hopefully the mum will be okay too, you’ve got to be either very distressed or totally deranged, possibly both, to do something like this. Hopefully it was the mother who did it and not somebody else.

Not necessarily, maybe it was a spontaneous labour somewhere, that happened incredibly fast and there was no time to contact to attend a hospital. Of course, nobody knows what really happened, and yes, clearly something is very wrong. But there is absolutely no excuse from either the mother, or whoever did this, to abandon a baby to die. Where is the common sense anymore? 🙄

Wow!!! Not seeing the bigger picture are you?