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

[wigglylines]

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]

wigglylines: "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."

I think people like to blame the victim because it reassures them that something this bad couldn't happen to them. "Oh, the police must have shot him because he was up to no good", and so on. But we should know by now that institutions - hospitals, schools, the police, etc - do often behave in easy that are inhumane or corrupt.

What kind of idiot chooses to fly at 36 weeks for such a flimsy reason?

What kind of idiot opts to sit in a car all the way from Spain to
London at 38 or 39 weeks pregnant? With. Three year old in tow?

What kind of an idiot goes into premature labour at home and doesn't bother to call an ambulance or go to hospital until the following day? With a premature baby?

Why did the consulate refuse to help her? I find that very odd.

Why did she not travel with all her ante natal notes? Could the hospital in Spain not contact the NHS to corroborate her story and her dates?

Why did she walk out of the hospital?

I'm not saying the baby isn't hers, but there are way too many red flags in this story for my liking, so the jury's out. Even if the baby is hers there is definitely something fishy going on with her.

The baby wasn't premature, born at 38 weeks? She went to hospital in the morning. Once baby was here, there wasn't much need, was there? Pregnant women are not prisoners, she can travel where she damn well likes!!

I think people like to blame the victim because it reassures them that something this bad couldn't happen to them

This, with bells on.

Who cares if you personally wouldn't fly at 36 weeks, or travel at 38 weeks? I wouldn't, either, but I certainly know people who have. It's not illegal, it doesn't flag up any social services interventions, and it's certainly not a reason to assume that it's okay to threaten removal of a baby.

And anyone who thinks 38 weeks is premature labour is the idiot, not the woman who delivers a TERM 38 week baby safely at home and goes into hospital the next day (bringing the placenta, which suggests someone pretty clued up about checking placenta is complete) for a check up.

DontDrinkAndFacebook that is a shocking way to talk about someone who has just been through such an awful experience. Have you no empathy?

Perhaps not, you seem to be proving my point. Because you can't identify with her actions you are disbelieving her story.

And FWIW it's worth, she did travel with her maternity notes, and also documents proving she is British.

The hospital claimed the child was not hers despite the presence of maternity notes, and accepting after an examination that she had indeed given birth very recently.

Despite this, she says, they continued to ask her if she was actually from Senegal, and treated her as if she was guilty of stealing someone else's baby.

The hospital have let her go with her baby, so presumably they have no further concerns, so there is no reason to still be saying things like " Even if the baby is hers."

It is her baby.

Also you have no idea what pressures she's under, or what's going on in her life that led to her travelling so late in her pregnancy. Please can we leave the insults out?

How do you think she will feel if she reads that? She's a real person with feelings not a character in a whodunnit.

The hospital said it was clearly NOT a baby that had been born the day before and that it was in fact a premature baby. The baby was then in the neonatal unit until she left.

She said she took her maternity notes, but we don't know that. We don't know very much at all and what we do know is very strange and contradictory. Just because this woman says something doesn't mean she is telling the truth. Who knows what went on really, but to believe everything she says I think is foolish.

I shouldn't type essays-posts on my phone! My sentence got mangled in a post above.

It should have said

"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 she is telling the truth"

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.

It's a couple of news reports, and I don't personally take everything a journalist chooses to spoon feed me as gospel. I can critically examine everything I read and maintain a healthy dose of skepticism that everything is not always as reported.

You seem far too close to this story yourself OP, and you're determined to just find one person saying 'oh yes poor her' instead of being able to debate the various aspects of this case and being able to see the various sides of the story.

Use your common sense. The story does not add up. The consulate wouldn't touch this one with a ten foot barge pole. Most of the mainstream media wasn't interested in touching this story. If there were truly a human rights violation here, then the various news outlets would have been all over it, and the consulate would have acted. Why didn't they? Use your brain and think that there may have been a lot more to this story than a few flimsy news stories have said.

"The hospital said it was clearly NOT a baby that had been born the day before and that it was in fact a premature baby. The baby was then in the neonatal unit until she left."

Where are you getting that from - the hospital have not made a statement have they?

Does the healthy, fairly big baby in those pictures look premature to you?

The consulate wouldn't touch this one with a ten foot barge pole.

Nonsense. UK Consulates do not get involved with legal processes in other countries. They certainly don't pre-judge cases and decide which ones they will help and which they won't. All they do is offer a list of English-speaking lawyers and translators. The only situation in which they involve themselves is when it a UK citizen is being treated illegally (according to the laws of a host country, which may be very different to the UK's.)

The only situation in which they involve themselves is when it a UK citizen is being treated illegally

And this is exactly what I meant. They didn't feel anything illegal was happening in this case.

The Spanish authorities activated a protocol that applies when there are doubts about the maternity. The doubts about maternity were because she said the baby was a matter of hours old and the paeditrician was willing to stake his/her porfessional reputation on the fact that she believed the baby to be 3-5 days old. The paeditrician also felt the baby was not a term baby as the mother claimed. That is why the mother was investigated.

That is where I am getting it from.

Op youre calling others naive when you are quoting the woman in question verbatim as fact?

You dont seem to understand; she could be saying anything at all. Nobody knows anything. You cannot judge this case because you know nothing about it. And just because they let her go with the baby does not mean there are no further concerns. At best this women is bloody odd, and clearly needs some kind of assistance.

OK, for arguments sake it doesn't matter that

She travelled late in pregnancy
She didn't look into what to do should her baby arrive before date
She did not call ambulance or even taxi as soon as waters broke
Took quite a few hours before going into a hospital
When asked questions decided to take off so police had to be called in

OK, all of the above is not a crime and lets say it does not matter, however

To the doctors the baby had been born 3 to 5 days earlier and the mother's story did not add up. Yes, they carried out an "intrusive" check up on the mother which proved she had given birth.
The hospital was acting responsably when they decided to investigate and remember they didn't just go ahead and order the dna test. They presented all the facts to the courts and a judge decided there were enough reasons to carry out the investigations. We don't know what evidence that judge was presented with to decide to take action.
Also the British Embassy were informed and if some outrageous miscarriage of justice was being perpetrated they would have stepped in. They didn't because what the authorities were doing was the same they would have done if the British subject had been Spanish.
Then for the lady in question to tell all and sundry that this is not the way things are done in her country is beyond the pale.
She has cried racism, well I say she is xenophobic

"She has cried racism, well I say she is xenophobic"

That is a shameful thing to say. Totally unfounded.

As unfounded as accusations of racism.

Do you always believe what you read in the papers as truth? You should stop that.

I think that the DNA test was a red herring that they were doing to confirm maternity while also looksing into other things.
The whole story is very odd and while it must have been distressing for this lady the safety and welfare of the baby should come first so to keep th baby at the hospital while it's being resolved would seem like a sensible option.

As it has now been proven that the baby was hers and she had given birth hours earlier shouldn't the paediatrician who was willing to stake his/her porfessional reputation on the fact that she believed the baby to be 3-5 days old and was not a term baby be handing his or her notice in immediately. As their reputation is shot.
Or is this another case of professional people throwing accusations around and not having any come back.

I agree that there needs to be questioning of the fact that the professionals were so sure that the baby could not have been born the day before - and yet now agree that it was. What evidence led them to their original decision. I cannot imagine how angry and outraged I would be if that happened to me. At the very least some medical lessons need to be learned.

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.

No the reason some of us are saying that there seems to be more to it is because we have worked in situations where similar stories have made the press and there has been much more to it.

To be honest, even if her story is 100% true and there is no missing info I don't think she was unfairly treated. The authorities first concern has to be ensure that the welfare of the child is safeguarded and her actions called that into question. I'm certain that if they were purely waiting for the results of a DNA test the hospital would have been doing everything in their power to get these as quickly as they could - after all if that's all it was the baby was blocking one of their beds and the mother was blocking a different bed, plus their staff were having to deal with the (no doubt upset, emotional, irate) mother and also the press and probably the British consulate. But tests take as long they take.

As it has now been proven that the baby was hers and she had given birth hours earlier shouldn't the paediatrician who was willing to stake his/her porfessional reputation on the fact that she believed the baby to be 3-5 days old and was not a term baby be handing his or her notice in immediately. As their reputation is shot.

We don't know that's what the paediatrician said. We know that's what the mother says the paediatrician said.

We don't know anything of the sort. We know the baby is hers, we don't know exactly when it was born. We know she presented with an unusual case which aroused suspicions amongst professionals and that there were some behind the scenes investigations, including a DNA test. That's about all we know.

she had given birth hours earlier we don't know this. That is what she says. We don't know if it is true.