Psting in AIBU for traffic - Bristol mum and newborn have gone missing, please keep your eyes open if in bristol!

[KnitFastDieWarm]

Apologies for posting here but the Avon and Somerset police are running an urgent appeal for the safe return of Bristol mum Charlotte Bevan and her four day old baby, who have gone missing from a central Bristol maternity unit and haven't been seen for over 12 hours. PLEASE keep an eye out for her and phone the police if you see her - she's white, around 5'8, dark hair, wearing a black top, black trousers and hospital slippers or flip flops. Her baby is wrapped in a stripey blanket.

Hoping and praying for a safe return sad

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/03/mother-baby-missing-bristol-maternity-hospital

It sounds like lots of hospitals have tags. It could probably been a random person walking unchallenged off with the baby.
If she had been stopped i suspect a lot would have been inferred from a person trying to leave in slippers no coat and she would have had more attention paid.
Makes me wonder if she should have been alone with baby at all as there is no reason it might not have been harmed at the hospital

A local PND support group in Bristol, Mothers for Mothers, is currently fundraising if anyone wants to donate.
localgiving.com/charity/mfm

Southmead, (the other large maternity unit in bristol) has a security guard who controls the door, I was stopped with dd1 and wasn't allowed to leave with her until he phoned the ward and checked. I don't see how security in a maternity unit could possibly be a bad thing?
naty1 she may not have meant to harm the baby so the hospital and her family probably didn't see her as a risk to the baby directly. All sorts of things were probably going through her head, I have two family members with schizophrenia, one of whom is a mother and when she has a breakdown her child has to be removed and handed to me, sometimes for weeks/months at a time. Not because she wants to harm her dc but because her mind will make her think things that simply aren't true.
I'm rambling, it's just so sad.

Forgot to say, agree with naty1 there is obviously some sort of failing as it could have been a random person walking out with someone else's baby seeing that no one checked who she was.
If it had been that scenario we would all be here blaming the hospital no?

living thank you.

You are so right about services being patchy. It's a real postcode lottery, and it shouldn't be.

As an aside, there was another thread running which has now been deleted (at OPs request) where the OP was roundly roasted for daring to suggest this terrible tragedy could have been prevented. I posted in agreement as I have on here, that she could have recovered given the right support and how sad it was, apparently that was distateful..still trying to work that one out.

Things are better than they used to be (my poor mum, when she tried to get treatment after I was born was told to go home pull her socks up because she had a nice home, a husband and a baby so what was she complaining about) but there's still so much stigma around PND, I think it scares people. It's not supposed to happen but it doesn't fit in with the romantic stuff about falling in love with your baby instantly.

Forgive me if this is a bit jumbled..it's getting close to my bed time. It's a subject that's very close to my heart.

MrsRhett - I think the baby abduction thing is different, as it would have meant someone getting in to the ward who shouldn't have, after visiting hours, and taking a baby who either wasn't supervised or who was taken from the mother. That's quite a different scenario than a person who was supposed to be there, with their own child who they had unrestricted access to, leaving the ward.

Yes that's very true fatter, point taken.
I still believe she should have been challenged at some point though, I had to show dd1s discharge papers to remove my own baby from the unit in a car seat (checked by midwife) and appropriately clothed and I just cannot see this as a bad thing.
Obviously I still had the right to take my child if I wanted to but I wouldn't have been able to do it quietly.

I know there has been a lot of concern and compassion on this thread for poor Charlotte Bevan and her baby.

I walk over the suspension bridge at least twice a day (live and work on opposite sides of it). I wanted to let the people following this thread know that there is the most beautiful shrine of candles on the bridge parapet, on the Clifton side, facing the cliffs where she jumped. It must have been about 100 candles earlier this evening, all shining brightly, sending love and sorrow into the darkness.

I waited there a little, thinking with awe of the mothers who suffer PND and survive, and thinking with compassion of Charlotte and others like her, who struggle against insurmountable odds.

Thank you randomname27 x

Lovely to know the candles are there

RIP Charlotte and Zaani.
I hope you are together and at peace.
Such a very sad ending for you both.

randomname that is lovely. thanks for letting us all know. I'll be heading up there on my way to work tomorrow to lay some flowers. I didn't know Charlotte personally but as a woman with mental health issues I know how easily I could have been in her position. such a tragedy.

That is beautiful randomnamex

I have never heard of the need to tag people aside from the usual hospital wristband. Unless it is a secure unit such as psyche wards, which I have been on the of, and it is not fun. Even then I wasn't tagged and the security guards are there for staff and patient safety. I am glad for it. But this isn't the place to debate it, not for me anyway.

On prevention at the very least the hospital should have their child safeguarding procedures in place and that too seems to have failed. It's all so awful.

flippinda it is better isn't it but still a mountain to climb. This whole thing has hit very close to the bone for me. I'm just so mad and sad.

This is so tragic and heartbreaking. My thoughts are with Charlotte and her family.

I don't want to speculate on this individual case but as someone with MH issues I can assure you the calls for tighter security and suspicion of mothers with MH issues is the least helpful approach. People with MH issues need support and love to recover, not to be held prisoner and deemed untrustworthy. You cannot keep women locked up on maternity wards indefinitely; tight security for the few days a woman is in hospital won't help her or her baby once they are discharged and back in the community. Funding better mental health services would be far, far more helpful and supportive both in the short and long term.

I think another problem is a lack of transparency regarding what effect having a mental illness will have on a woman's maternity care. Fear of the unknown. Another poster said social services are involved when a woman reaches 6 months of pregnancy, is this standard NHS policy for all women with MH issues? Is there even a nationwide protocol for women with MH issues? The topic seems murky and unclear, and that no doubt causes fear in women.

Personally, I am not planning to give birth in the UK when I am unclear of what the impact of my MH condition will be on my maternity care. I do not deserve suspicion and to be scrutinised, and would rather give birth abroad than be subjected to tests to prove my capabilities as a parent.

Mothers for mothers also have a fundraising event on Sunday if anyone is in the area.

I had MH involvement during pregnancy last year - consultant led care etc - no social services involvement was ever mentioned.

I agree it seems to vary wildly (and unhelpfully) between trusts.

I was fine when I was in hospital, was desperate to come home but in the car on the way home I suddenly was overwhelmed with panic, cried all the way home & my mood just spiralled downwards from there.

If I hadn't recognised what was happening (from years of depression) & asked for help I don't know what would have happened.

With regards abductions, I do find it very odd how just anyone can turn up at a hospital and roam around unchallenged. I have done it myself, when visiting my sick mum albeit in visiting hours. I can just stroll in, nobody at the desk asks for ID or is even there to see me, walk up to some old biddy asleep and unable to talk - it's my mother but the don't know that. No need to don a nurse's uniform like Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill or any such subterfuge. Can you imagine being allowed to stroll into any office building unchecked or unchallenged?

Tiptops

"I don't want to speculate on this individual case but as someone with MH issues I can assure you the calls for tighter security and suspicion of mothers with MH issues is the least helpful approach. People with MH issues need support and love to recover, not to be held prisoner and deemed untrustworthy. You cannot keep women locked up on maternity wards indefinitely; tight security for the few days a woman is in hospital won't help her or her baby once they are discharged and back in the community. Funding better mental health services would be far, far more helpful and supportive both in the short and long term."

That is how I was treated though, like a prisoner. I was very clear with the psych team I did not want MABU admission and the pdoc who ran the MABU said it was not necessary on psychiatric grounds, however SS made it clear if I did not have the IP parenting assessment they would instigate care proceedings. I was astounded as someone who has worked as a children's doctor and has no criminal record or history of violence. I had to stay for a month in a hospital when I was not unwell and did not want to be there.

I have to say the MABU was absolutely brilliant, far better than an adult psych ward and they took the safety of the babies very seriously. There was an admission when I was there of a lady with psychosis who was violent. She only lasted a few hours on the ward, she was promptly removed as the ward would not tolerate that type of behaviour.

An IP parenting assessment is quite formal and they had a set strategy for doing it. For the first week ds was not allowed to sleep in my room, he had to be in a locked nursery and I was only allowed to see him under direct supervision. Even nappy changes had to be supervised.

I was not allowed to take baby out until week 3 and I had to be supervised to show I could navigate roads safely.

I was told I passed with flying colours, however from a personal point of view I was made to feel like I was guilty until proven innocent. Took months to prove I was totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

I was told SS work on risk rather than actual harm, however imagine the outcry if the police did this. Arresting a shifty looking guy in a posh area because there was a risk he was a burglar. It would be an infringement of his human right.

I found the whole experience, especially having to prove a University graduate can cross a road safely really quite humiliating and OTT.

I appreciate why they did it and on a positive note ds and I are alive and unharmed, but was it really necessary to do that?

ralt it's such a difficult balancing act though, isn't it? You know you wouldn't harm your baby and you didn't but isn't it almost to, some extent, better safe than sorry? I really apologise if I have said that clumsily.

Past behaviour and assessed risk factors are the only gauges that the authorities have to assess future risk. And baby's safety is paramount.

It's great how well you are doing now.

The biggest worry for SS when they did the pre-birth assessment was the 30% risk of psychosis. The SW who did the assessment was very senior and coming up for retirement. She told me she had previously dealt with a case of psychosis where a "significant event" had occurred but could not tell me more about it due to confidentiality.

To be fair no-one could predict if I would be in the 30% who get sick or the 70% who do not. There was also a massive risk of PND but I cannot remember the exact percent the pdoc told me. It was a lot higher than 30%.

The risk of psychosis is by far highest in the first week after birth. I think they should have just admitted me for a week and then let me go home when I was not showing signs.

I can see why they took the action that they did, but it was horrible being viewed as a bad mum until proven otherwise.

What angers me the most is that when I did the original assessment the SW described my upbringing as the most severe case of abuse she had heard of in her whole career. So where were the SS then, when I actually needed them? Nowhere to be seen.

I have to say though the SWs who dealt with me were honest and highly professional. Nothing like the incompetent baby snatchers the media portray them as.

I don't want to speculate on this individual case but as someone with MH issues I can assure you the calls for tighter security and suspicion of mothers with MH issues is the least helpful approach. People with MH issues need support and love to recover, not to be held prisoner and deemed untrustworthy. You cannot keep women locked up on maternity wards indefinitely; tight security for the few days a woman is in hospital won't help her or her baby once they are discharged and back in the community. Funding better mental health services would be far, far more helpful and supportive both in the short and long term

I couldn't agree more. One of my greatest fears in seeking help would be the fact that I would get treated like that, and its a regular theme that I see in posts on MN for women who suffer from severe anxiety, that they will be sectioned, forced to have drugs, or their baby removed. There was a post only this week by a lady expressing that fear. Putting in extra measure like this will only serve to fuel that fear.

One of the things that was said to me during my experience, was the fact that I sought help counted for me and they had less concerns, even though I was high risk, because I was willing to engage. It shows its a bit of a vicious circle if you are suspicious of services and lack trust to be able to do that; so unless stigma is tackled and services are viewed from the outside as 'more friendly' women simply will be too scared to access them.

As it was in my case, at the last minute they did spring "we think its appropriate to refer you to social services" which was terrifying, especially given the fact I'd expressed how afraid I was that my baby would be taken away. It added to my anxiety, rather than being a comfort or prospect of a safety net and source of support. It felt like something of a kick in the teeth, that I'd done everything 'right' and they still felt that I couldn't be trusted. In the end nothing has really come of it, apart from an extra couple of appointments which were a complete waste of time for both parties. What stands out in my mind now, is just how I viewed SS and how it felt like the enemy rather than something I could look to for help. Which ultimately suggests SS has a massive problem with its public perception and goes about doing things in a way that is very counter productive in its goals.