UK mum separated by force from newborn in Spain. AIBU to be shocked this is taking so long to resolve?

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Poor woman, poor baby too. I can't imagine what she's going through.

Why would they drag it out so long? How long does it take to get a DNA test FFS?

Story here www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/british-woman-says-she-was-separated-from-newborn-daughter-in-spain

[Petition link removed by MNHQ as we don't allow them in AIBU or anywhere other than our Petitions topic]

The child was in the neonatal unit. The mother wasn't a patient but was allowed to breastfeed the baby. She says it was restricted to every three hours but we don't know that, there are other inconsistencies.
If you don't want to end up giving birth in a foreign country where maybe they'll do things differently to the way you like, you don't travel at between 38 and 38 weeks pregnant, surely? On a totally unnecessary trip.

You have summed it up perfectly GoodToBetter

In Spain, if you have a normal birth and healthy baby, the baby is put in a see through cot next to your bed. You are kept in for 2 days as standard. You have the most delicious food which you choose in the morning from a menu. Your baby is taken to be washed and checked twice a day and brought back to you.

You are given breastfeeding advice. When they saw my GF Contented Baby book they tutted and said babies are fed on demand in Spain.

The baby was clearly not well. Again, health care here is amazing.

And no, as goodtobetter says, a responsible person would not travel at 38 weeks. Frankly, the feedback/complaints she is giving about the hospital are more than a bit entitled and do not ring true with me at all.

An injustice occurred.
But instead of criticising the injustice, the woman is being criticised for travelling.

Is that the standard response? Those silly children, they shouldn't have allowed themselves to be abused by Jimmy Saville.
Errrr no. Jimmy Saville shouldn't have done it.
We should criticise the perpetrators of an injustice, not the victim.

jamaisdeux that was my experience of giving birth in Spain to my second son.
I was expecting to give birth to him in Australia (where my first and third have been born) but thought it best not to travel so he was born in Malaga.

In public hospitals in Andalucía you're always in for 48 hours no matter how straightforward the birth or whether it's a first or later baby. Yes, the baby is with you, there are no nurseries the baby is taken away to...this baby was in the NEONATAL unit. I was never told to feed only 3 hourly either, not in hospital or by any doctors or paeds.

This particular hospital is part of the "humanization of perinatal services" (excuse crap translation) established in 2008 across Andalucía. Its aims were basically to invole parents as much as poss in birth, create conditions for more natural births and fewer interentions, eliminate unnecessary separation of parents from newborns and to promote breast feeding.

I think the point is we do not have all the information and so we do not know if any injustice has occurred, do we? From the information about this woman and how she presented, I am quite satisfied with the investigations into her story and the care gien to her premature child (whom she lied about being premature).

I'm sorry, but you can't go galavanting across the world while 38 weeks pregnant and no healthcare organised or accomodation and another small child in tow and then lie about things and then run off when questioned and then not expect all of that to trigger the involvement of agencies like SS, courts, police. Quite apart from the doubts around the date of her pregnancy and the birth and the suspiscions that obviously arises (WHY lie about it at all?) and the fact that the baby clearly was not well if it was then to spend 3 weeks in the neonatal unit. Not hospital, the NEONATAL unit because it was premature...which she lied about!

The AIBU was specifically about whether the hospital was grossly incompetent for making her wait 3 weeks for the results of a DNA test.

We don't know that she waited 3 weeks for the results of a DNA test. All we know is that the baby was in hospital for three weeks. She says that the reason was because she was waiting for the results of the DNA test. That doesn't necessarily make that true. The baby could have been kept in hospital for that long for all sorts of other reasons. The DNA test may only be part of a story.

And if a DNA test takes three weeks, that's how long it takes. I can't imagine the doctor's sat there whispering to each other "just drag your heels over this one. Make her wait".

We don't know that she waited 3 weeks for the results of a DNA test. All we know is that the baby was in hospital for three weeks. She says that the reason was because she was waiting for the results of the DNA test. That doesn't necessarily make that true.

^^ exactly!

So true.
Some seem to think doctors were keeping them on a whim. She of course and understandably didn't want to leave the baby so they provided her with a private room in the maternity ward. She could not be in the same ward as the baby because the baby was in the neonatal ward.
Babies in that ward are very closely monitored and visits restricted.

I find the idea of being expected to stay in for 48hours after birth hideous. Fine if treatment is necessary but as a standard practice is sounds a bit OTT. I went home about 5hours after my first and it was lovely to go to sleep in my own bed.

And you can pick and choose what sounds iffy about this story. If there is no hospital nursery and a baby is kept in for it down protection then maybe they deemed the Nicu to be the best place practically speaking for a newborn.

It doesn't matter if the woman didn't have a good reason for going to Spain.
It doesn't matter if she was disorganised
It doesn't matter if she made different decisions than you would when under stress
None of that is relevant to the question of whether she's been treated badly. That stands on its own merits. The quality of hospital care should not be doled out as a reward or punishment for acceptable behaviour.

It does sound as if she has been treated badly. It also sounds as if she made some poor decisions. The two do not balance each other out, and the hospital should be answering questions over it.

Your baby is taken to be washed and checked twice a day and brought back to you

And there you have the difference between Spanish and English Hospitals. No way would you be parted from your baby. Why do they need to check and wash a baby that many times?

My DD was born in 2011 and wasn't taken away at any point, either to be washed or checked. I had to take her down the corridor to the paed once and to another floor for the hearing test. Otherwise she was in a little glass cot in my bed with me the whole time.

This.

"It doesn't matter if the woman didn't have a good reason for going to Spain.
It doesn't matter if she was disorganised
It doesn't matter if she made different decisions than you would when under stress

None of that is relevant to the question of whether she's been treated badly. That stands on its own merits. The quality of hospital care should not be doled out as a reward or punishment for acceptable behaviour."

But I don't agree she has been treated badly. Her case aroused suspicions that the baby was premature and that there might be other issues, a protocol was activated to investigate and the child was taken into the neonatal unit of the hospital while investigations were made by judges and police. She was given a private room in the hospital and encouraged to breastfeed the baby. We don't know more than this. We don't know if it is true about 3 hourly access.

The AIBU was specifically about whether the hospital was grossly incompetent for making her wait 3 weeks for the results of a DNA test.

Is it likely that the hospital itself was doing the DNA test? I imagine the test was done by a forensics lab or similar, in which case the hospital would not have been able to speed up or delay the process.

It doesn't matter if the woman didn't have a good reason for going to Spain.
It doesn't matter if she was disorganised
It doesn't matter if she made different decisions than you would when under stress

Except that does all matter to the question at point: did the spanish authorities have any right to detain the child? All of those and many more questions matter.
You keep going on about a 3 week wait for a dna test. The only person saying this is what the wait was for is the woman herself, it could have been for any number of things that she wouldn't want to say.
You can't decide whether the hospital has been grossly incompetent SINCE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE HOSPITAL DID, SAID, OR HOW THEY TREATED HER.

The naivety in believing this woman as the sole source of information is incredible. Her account is full of inconsistencies and fishy sounding snippets. You're a fool if you don't think there is a lot more to this story.

Exactly Winter.

I have to agree with jamaisdeux - healthcare in Spain is superb, and sadly far superior to what I have experienced in the UK.

Again I can only assume that the insistence that there must be more to it is a tacit acceptance that if her story is true, she was indeed treated appallingly.

Of the mothers here, how would you have felt if the hospital took your baby off you at birth and only let you hold them every 3 hours.

I don't know about you but I got anxious if well-meaning relatives held my baby too London in those first weeks, particularly if I knew my baby needed a feed or comfort. The instinct to be together was very strong indeed.

It would have been an absolute nightmare if I had been forcibly seperated from my babies for 3 weeks. And yes, it is a seperation even though she got limited access. To say otherwise is minimising.

A bit more compassion wouldn't go amiss.

No we don't know all the facts. But to assume that the hospital must be right is also naive in the extreme. Injustices do happen in life, all the time, sadly. And if we always assume that the victims of injustice must be making it up then we are part of the problem IMO.

If a mother says a hospital has taken her baby from her, solely because they say the baby isn't hers we should at least entertain the possibility that the baby isn't hers, we should at least accept there is a chance that she us telling the truth IMO. All this amateur sleuthing, and deciding you know the facts based on your own prejudices and experiences which are nothing like this mother's are extremely misguided IMO. Imagine if it happened to you, you were telling the truth and read a thread like this, how would it make you feel? And as she's British and Mumsnet gets high Google rankings it's reasonable to accept she may well read this at some point.

*too long not too London!

All the amateur sleuthing and picking holes in her story reminds me of when poor old Jade Goody learnt she had cancer and left the Big Brother House.

The things people said here at the time were shocking. Lots of stuff about how she must be doing it for publicity, and that because she acted in a way that posters felt was odd or not how they would have acted then her story must be unreliable. The cynical, critical things said about her were awful. And totally unfounded.

The poor woman had just found out she had cancer, and sadly we know know she certainly wasn't making any of it up or doing it for publicity.

The reason this reminds me of it is because I am convinced that part of the reason people were so unsympathetic to Jade Goody's news is because they were unable to seperated their opinion of her from the news of the awful situation she found herself in. A bit more empathy, compassion and people stopping and thinking - what if she is telling the truth wouldn't have gone amiss.

In this situation I can't help feeling that if posters identified more with the woman they would feel less inclined to disbelieve her. In other words if she was more like you you would find her easier to believe. But, partly because people can't understand her actions as they perceive they would not be in a similar situation in the first place, and for some partly also because of unconscious racism, you find her story less easy to believe than someone who you identify with and who acts like you in that situation.

To go down that road is a dangerous path IMO. If you totally discount the possibility that her story could be true and automatically side with the hospital without knowing the all facts you are helping to create an environment where certain people are vulnerable to abuse of power by authorities as they are likely to be disbelieved. Which is far from ideal and not something I want to be a part of.