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Horrific - forced C/Section by SS to take baby into care.

252 replies

BohemianGirl · 01/12/2013 05:32

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10486452/Woman-has-child-taken-from-her-womb-by-social-services.html

Words fail me.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is an Italian national who come to Britain in July last year to attend a training course with an airline at Stansted Airport in Essex.

She suffered a panic attack, which her relations believe was due to her failure to take regular medication for an existing bipolar condition.

She called the police, who became concerned for her well-being and took her to a hospital, which she then realised was a psychiatric facility.

She has told her lawyers that when she said she wanted to return to her hotel, she was restrained and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Meanwhile, Essex social services obtained a High Court order in August 2012 for the birth “to be enforced by way of caesarean section”, according to legal documents seen by this newspaper.

The woman, who says she was kept in the dark about the proceedings, says that after five weeks in the ward she was forcibly sedated. When she woke up she was told that the child had been delivered by C-section and taken into care.

In February, the mother, who had gone back to Italy, returned to Britain to request the return of her daughter at a hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court.
Her lawyers say that she had since resumed taking her medication, and that the judge formed a favourable opinion of her. But he ruled that the child should be placed for adoption because of the risk that she might suffer a relapse.

The cause has also been raised before a judge in the High Court in Rome, which has questioned why British care proceedings had been applied to the child of an Italian citizen “habitually resident” in Italy. The Italian judge accepted, though, that the British courts had jurisdiction over the woman, who was deemed to have had no “capacity” to instruct lawyers.

OP posts:
MadameDefarge · 02/12/2013 00:39

Not some random social worker deciding to baby snatch from the bleeding womb of a completely healthy patient.

deepfriedsage · 02/12/2013 00:48

Keep telling yourself that.

MurderOfGoths · 02/12/2013 00:49

Just clearing this up in my head, there's a whole load of things we don't know about this situation (and probably never will)

  • how her bipolar affects her? (eg. does it involve hallucinations/delusions)
  • what were the circumstances around her being sectioned? (Seeing as it is pretty hard to get sectioned this has got to be something fairly awful)
  • why was she kept in beyond the standard 28 days?
  • was the c-section due to her mental health or physical health?
  • what the risks were to the child?
  • is she actually better now?

That's a hell of a lot of questions that could dramatically change the angle on this news story.

I mean, if it was that she was delusional, trying to hurt herself/others, not improving, had physical problems which would have meant she'd have died without a c-section and/or was threatening to kill/harm the child then there'd be outcry if professionals hadn't stepped in.

Greythorne · 02/12/2013 00:56

I think there may well be more to this story but to those who think it's absolutely fine and nothing to worry about, I do think you are naïve and frankly odd not to understand why people have a very visceral reaction to this story, as told in the Telegraph and zone DM. It is an Orwellian nightmare and Baby P, Jimmy Savile, Stuart Hall, Victoria Climbie (sp?) all teach us that we cannot always trust the authorities, be they SS, mental hospital boards or the BBC.

MadameDefarge · 02/12/2013 00:57

The only reason for a judge to order an enforced c section on someone would be because they had an acute medical need, but were considered not to have the mental capacity to consent.

The judge consents on behalf of the patient.

knocknock · 02/12/2013 07:24

I feel sorry for this woman

I know exactly what it's mean to be misdiagnosed
not once many times

I also know how easily bad things can happen in your life

but in this particular situation Im surprised that
She was left on her own in different country
did she revive help from Italian embassy?
The article doesn't state this

candycoatedwaterdrops · 02/12/2013 08:26

While my heart does, of course, go out to this lady, I think some of you commenting have no idea of what a patient who has been section can be like. I work with the most unwell client MH client group. Even with hindsight and being in good mental health, many of them will swear blind that they were involuntarily admitted because; "my brother wanted to get me evicted" or "they were jealous of my connection to Allah" or "I was a bit drunk". (Obviously I have changed those statements slightly to protect privacy). This isn't because they are still unwell but because they were so unwell at the time, that they cannot make head nor tail of the situation.

Capacity to make medical decisions is different to be incapable of making the decision to be in a psych ward or not. Getting permission to for a surgeon to perform surgery on a non-consenting patient is very very very difficult. We have a case going on in the team in which I work at the very moment. There is a client with a severe mental illness who is refusing consent for a serious operation. While her condition won't kill her instantly, it will eventually. Numerous professionals have assessed her and deemed her to lack capacity to make this decision, yet they are still fighting with the courts and the medical team to go ahead. It's a long and complex process. Those of you who think that a great number of professionals are putting their heads together and colluding are really quite far off the mark.

I am not saying that mistakes were not made in this case or in any case. I am simply saying that your knowledge is wrong and you are scaremongering.

curlew · 02/12/2013 08:41

" think there may well be more to this story but to those who think it's absolutely fine and nothing to worry about"

But nobody has said anything of the sort!

curlew · 02/12/2013 08:44

On radio 5 now.

thefuturesnotourstosee · 02/12/2013 08:56

What a sad case. Whatever the circumstances that led to it, the outcome is awful - mother has baby taken from her womb without her consent and put up for adoption :(

What I want to know is why she was kept in a British psychiatric hospital for so long. Why did they not look at returning her to Italy? I don't claim to know much about mental health but surely it would have been better for her to be with professionals who understood her language and culture and also to be within reach of her family and other children.

So many things I could say but not even sure where to start.

MurderOfGoths · 02/12/2013 09:42

"What I want to know is why she was kept in a British psychiatric hospital for so long. Why did they not look at returning her to Italy? I don't claim to know much about mental health but surely it would have been better for her to be with professionals who understood her language and culture and also to be within reach of her family and other children."

Possibly, but if she is in such a serious state that they feel they have to keep her in beyond the 28 days then she's probably not in a fit state to travel either. So how do they get her to Italy?

CarpeVinum · 02/12/2013 09:57

Why did they not look at returning her to Italy?

Possibly..

Because you cannot forcibly repatriate somebody who has a perfect right as a citizen of an EU country to be in another EU country quickly. Where there is a time sensitive medical issue it is a non starter.

or

Her phycical state was fragile and precluded travel due to the potential catastrophic outcomes of being in transit should she deteriorate. (eg high blood pressure, suspected pre eclampsia as just a couple of possible pregancy realted medical complications)

or

Shg was in no fit state mentally to travel on mainstream transport and either she, or her family did not have the means for a medical flight that was willing and able to manage the transfer of a severely mentally ill patient.

That's just three potential scenrios rigth off the top of my head.

Having lived here in Italy for almost two decades, with a severely mentally ill mother in law who was sectioned and held for long periods (6 months plus) due to the severity of her bipolar I I do not believe there would necessarily have been a happy outcome had she been transfered to Italy.

If anything mental health services are even more stretched here and there are not equivilent welfare state mechanisms or community support services in place. Help is far more limited when things go bent.

Legally (in Italy) it is an incredibly difficult, slow and expensive process to get the court to declare somebody mentally incompetent to make their own descisions. In the case of bipolar more so becuase of the inherant fluctuations of the illness. Which leaves family with their hands tied in terms of handling the affairs of the ill person or creating a secure safety net for any dependants. The only certainty for them being when after tying their hands and leaving them an impossible task (that even trained professional teams on shifts find hard to cope with) when it all goes horribly wrong the public will howl why didn't the family "just do something". Again.

Had she been returend to Italy it is quite possible that rather than the British public being upset over headlines indicating forced c-sec and adoption of a child the Italian press would have been braying "why didn't they do something!" over the death/serious injury of a mother and/or baby.

And then when the next big headline hits everybody forgets it all again leaving the mentally ill, their family and dependants left to cope with a safety net and support network that is more hole than thread, as ever.

A state of play aided and abetted by a media that relies on manufacturing scandel, safe in the knowledge that due to patient and service user confidentiality the full facts can never be revealed to the public to offer them a more nauanced insight, becuase the right of mother and child not to have the full facts of their respective medical and child protection cases is paramount.

My mother in law died almost a year ago. It is disheartening to see so close the anniversary of her death that nothing has changed. She and other ill people are percived as only worhty of attention when it comes in the form of being exploited as sensationalist fodder for the media.

cestlavielife · 02/12/2013 10:06

she apparently had an existing MH condition
she was obviously/heavily(?) pregnant (no suggestion baby was v prem)

she had stopped taking meds (maybe because of the pregnancy?)

she had some kind of attack - saying "panic attack" is perhaps misleading as if she was sectioned it would have been a bit more than hyperventilation.

as candy said some people with severe Mh conditions are in denial/delusional - my ex has told people he only stayed in the psych ward because i wouldnt have him home he was having a severe mh episode and had already attacked himself and ds and smashed up the house and it was only coz there were no b and b s available.... getting a free bed in psych ward is v easy .

she must have been in severe state to be sectioned.
we dont know circumstances of the c section.

forced sedation = presumably does happen sometimes for patients with severe problems. that needs to be reviewed for this case.

but it would have gone thru a court. having child taken into care rather than a mum and baby unit - again maybe she was still in severe psychosis of some kind. we dont know.

why she cant get her child back if she now well then that is unclear. clearly the underlying condition must be serious - relapse to another "panic attack" would not make sense...

CarpeVinum · 02/12/2013 10:10

edit

becuase the right of mother and child not to have the full facts of their respective medical and child protection cases made public knowledge is paramount.

valiumredhead · 02/12/2013 12:48

I think the fact she already has two children that are with family members tends too suggest she had had long standing issues rather than 'just a panic attack.'

valiumredhead · 02/12/2013 12:49

To not tooHmm

valiumredhead · 02/12/2013 12:52

Candy-that has been my experience of a friend who had been sectioned, absolute conviction that it was a miscarriage of justice etcSad

Caitlin17 · 04/12/2013 15:02

There is a report in today's Guardian and probably other papers, which probably goes as far as Essex council can on their version of events. They liased"extensively" with the family, the Italian courts ruled in May the child should stay in England and 2 other children were already out of her care due to Italian court orders.

It mentions the offer by the aunt, who is after all unrelated to this baby to take her to America and indeed to take 3 of the other children. I was very sceptical about the idea of the aunt but the fact she's now being offered as a solution for 3 of the children sounds a bit fanciful.

feelingfuckingfestiveok · 04/12/2013 15:17

So the UK snatch babies because we haven't got a shortage of adoptive arents or foster place oh no

There are some very ignorant and ill-infomred views on this thread.

The question murder of goths raised up there are highly pertinent.

I hope they mum and baby are well.

OldDaddy · 04/12/2013 15:23

It's pretty shocking but what would everyone be saying if the headline was "bi-polar mum to be jumps in front of train during relapse". Until we know the full story -which given the press I'm sure will eventually come out there's only speculation.

Puremince · 04/12/2013 15:25

If she was past her due date (I think I read she was sectioned at 41 weeks) what were the options for delivery?

Puremince · 04/12/2013 15:35

Also, as Italian social services had already removed her two older children (now being brought up by their grandparents) would they have removed this baby, too, if it had been born in Italy?

tinmug · 04/12/2013 15:43

I mean, if it was that she was delusional, trying to hurt herself/others, not improving, had physical problems which would have meant she'd have died without a c-section and/or was threatening to kill/harm the child then there'd be outcry if professionals hadn't stepped in

Yes. It's an impossibly difficult situation. The post upthread by candy is good. "Enforced c-section" sounds horrifying on the face of it but unless we know the facts - and we don't - I don't think we can or should judge. What if she'd had pre-eclampsia and would have died if her refusal for a section had been respected?

HopAlongOnItsOnlyChristmas · 04/12/2013 15:44

Tis article has a good breakdown of why the reporting on this story has led to so much misplaced outraged.

lilyaldrin · 04/12/2013 15:47

It may simply have been a case that the mother desperately needed drugs that would have damaged the baby, and her paranoid delusions meant she didn't have the ability to decide for herself whether delivering the baby early was in their best interests - hence the doctors asking the court to decide on her behalf.