Baby taken away from mother for breastfeeding

[mmaagg]

In Madrid, Spain, a young Moroccan mother has had her baby taken into care because she was still breastfeeding her at 15 months. She was living in sheltered accommodation for young mothers, where apparently it is routinely encouraged to wean ?older? babies, even forcing medication onto mothers to stop producing milk. This woman, known as Habiba, was described as incompetent as a mother because she was feeding her baby ?chaotically?. She was basically feeding on demand.

There?s been a massive response from people, there?s a Facebook group and an online petition some of you may want to sign, and they're also available in English.

A good article to get more info plus some links is here

www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/madrid-15-month-old-removed-from-mother-because-she-refused-to-wean/

Can't imagine what she must be going through. She's only seen her daughter for an hour after 10 days, and it's not clear what will happen and how soon.

Terrible for the mother but actually incredibly cruel for the baby. Her baby must be utterly bereft, confused and heartbroken.

Surely there has to be more to this story?

not sure if i'm reading this right. If she is only breastfeeding at 15 months then surely they are right to be concerned didn't a child die in belgium recently because they were only breastfedd and died of malnutrition. Not suggesting the child should be placed in care but surely intervention is needed

I read a couple of articles about this (I think there was a thread somewhere else) and from what I read it seems that these type of facilities in Spain just don't like BF and so do this sort of thing to stop it.

The issue was simply the BF, not that she was refusing to feed her alternative foods, and it's not the first time it's happened apparently.

Did this turn out to be true in the end? I saw the other thread and googled it and only got the same story pasted onto a few other sites.

No idea - the couple of articles I read were not on BBC type sites and I had never heard of them before so reserve judgement TBH, I wasn't interested enough to start doing an investigative journalism type number on it

Um, I am not BFing expert, but as far as I know exclusively BFing at 15 mths does not mean that the baby's health is being put at risk.

And I have read this story on Twitter. Have no reason to bellieve it is false

Really Mme? Surely by then in this country a paediatrician would be involved and people would be pretty worried?
But of course if this was in addition to food then it's terrible. I really hope there is more to it though

And my DS ate little until about 18m/2 (but bfed frequently) but I was worried.
He's 4 now, has some fussiness but overall eats well :)

Not sure, SPB. I did not BF my DC so have no personal experience. I thought that extended BFing was considered ok? Or is that just when partly BFing, partly weaned?

Yes, afaik, exclusively bf is recommended up to 6 months, OK until 11/12 months and then would become something to try to sort out. IME the extended bf became a comfort/bonding thing primarily, milk second (well apart from for DS up to about 2, as I mentioned :o)

Ah, ok. I stand corrected.

From what I have read on this, the authorities are keen to stop women BFing at the centres, as it is chaotic or some such nonsense.

If she was refusing to begin weaning then I could see that she might need more support and assistance, but surely removing the child is too harsh.

Habiba (the mother in question) was reported as failing to feed appropriate weaning foods (pureed fruit) as she would also feed Alma foods from her plate so she was definitely not exclusively bfing.

Lots of info here.

I have been on the FB group fopr a few days.

Habbiba was feeding on demand co sleeping and weaning with food from her plate. Non of these were in accordance with the homes policies.

i.e they give drugs to supress laction for mums (bearing in mind that the very mums they are there to help are low income socially excluded).

There report they wrote to justify Alma (the dd's) exclusion actually suggested that Habbiba had a very good and strong bond with her daughter. Whilst at some point there has been a suggestion of mental instabilty of Habiba, she has at no point been examined by a doctor, indedd Racies (?sp) the foundation currently helping her with her court case HAVE had her examined and found her to be sound.

The IMMF the body that removed her daughter did not need to go before a judge to do so and have no medical reports to support their claims.

Her daughter is suffering emotionally and has lost weight she is 15 monts old and has been removed without explanation from her mother. She has been alloweed to se her for 3 hours in the last 2 weeks (she (the daughter) wanted to bf but the suprised shouted NO!).

It is a heart wrenching story that does need to be told EL Pais is looking into it as is the judicary.

Please join the FB group if you are able.

Threee peaditrican 's on Spain bf body have written a letter in support of Habbiba.

sorry for the enormous amount of spelling errors in the above .. the supervisior would not let bf occur.

OMG what a sad story, how awful for both the mother and the baby

There's some info on the medical report here - www.facebook.com/WeAreAllHabiba?sk=app_103822229704881

It seems the centre's objections are that she is still bfing on demand, using the breast as a comforter instead of a dummy, and giving Alma proper food instead of just the fruit puree that is the centre standard. Also that she co-sleeps instead of putting the child in a cot.

Good news. After 3 weeks of separation mother and child were finally re-united.

Here's a Guardian article saying they've been reunited.

How much was it about breastfeeding though, and how much was it about the mother being poor, Moroccan, and not toeing the line?

Eldritch apparently other mothers at the centre were 'encouraged' to stop BFing. It seems to be a feeding issue.