UK: abandoned baby is full sibling to two others previously abandoned

I can't stop thinking about it.

I hope that police and social services are taking it seriously, but the fact that they already knew the first two were full siblings back in 2019, and don't seem to have reacted until a third turned up in 2024 - and even then only in terms of releasing the information at the demand of the press - is bizarre.

I also think some of the headlines, about parents or even mother "abandoning" the babies are oddly phrased too: nobody knows who abandoned the children - if the babies were removed form her, did she abandon them?

Abandoning a child is actually very unusual nowadays, unlike in the past. I think they said the previous one in the UK was 2011.

Secondly, a mother who's just given birth then abandoning the new born and not being found soon after because she's in need of some sort of healthcare is really unusual. Junkie or not, the bleeding after an unattended birth is going to be scary.

So doing it three times and presumably NEVER getting any health care at all any of those pregnancies or afterwards - well I'd say it's unheard of in a western country, even for junkies.

That's a good point: a mother who decides to abandon her child has made choices that I don't think a junkie is fit to do. They'd keep the child despite putting it in danger with their lifestyle. And anyway I don't believe the woman wouldn't be found pretty quickly by police or social services - because I think she wouldn't be well enough organised to keep it all a secret. Three times.

It's astonishing in our society to have been pregnant three times, given birth and left a baby, all without any healthcare and even without anyone else even noticing. I don't see how that can happen for a woman who is out and about in the world.

Once, maybe. Three times??

That said, there were cases of "denial of pregnancy" where woman has given birth and then killed the baby, and I think some of them did it more than once.

So I suppose it could be some version of that, but where the baby is abandoned instead. But in those cases, the father was (allegedly) unaware of the pregnancy. Would abandoning the baby in secret be more difficult to manage than disposing of its body?

I mean, I specifically agreed that they do. I said a different thing entirely:that this scenario of abandoned babies doesn't make sense in that context.

You seem to be one of those people (men!) who thinks that pregnancy is sitting around geting fat for 9 months, followed by a severe case of constipation.

It's a lot more complicated than that, and women who "freebirth" or whatever prepare it in advance, usually with some sort of "doula", the way women did for generations. It's part of an ideology, like I said - not something a junkie decides to do because she doen't want to keep her babies.

It's also got a high rate of death and injury - by definition: there's a reason why women dying in childbirth was a thing.

Wow I hadn't heard of that one. Yes it's the kind of thing that happened up to about the 70s or even 80s, but has become extremely rare now with changes in society, as wall as reliable contraception and now of course abortion too.

A friend of mine who's adopted has since found her birth family, and they are all her full siblings, so I know it happens that the couple stayed together after a first "illegitimate" birth. She had a lovely childhood with her adoptive parents, but still finds it a bit sad that she didn't grow up with siblings.

Not sure what you mean about profit? There have been several cases where rapists have kept a woman prisoner and made her pregnant, whether deliberately, or through carelessness or maybe because it's not that easy for a man to get a regular supply of contraceptive pills without there ever being a woman around somewhere. Not just Fritzl. Ariel Castro was another one, or Philip Garrido, who kidnapped Jaycee Dugard and kept her for nearly 20 years.

And those are the ones who got caught.

I don't mean this nastily, but: have you given birth yourself? The milk comes in no matter what, and women who decide not to breastfeed need to follow various instructions to reduce this happening as much as possible.

I think they've now stopped giving bromocriptines systematically but that means it's all the more important for the woman to be observed to ensure she doesn't develop mastitis. The point being that this requires some level of medical care, and I'm really not convinced that a woman being kept prisoner in some way is going to be getting the best care possible. Complications are likely, is my point.

They had medical care though, by being in contact with the nurses - that’s my point. Most women didn’t die giving birth in the past either but that’s not to say you can just give birth with no help - because when you do need help it’s important for there to be someone around who knows. Even if it’s just to identify a problem before it gets bad.

That was only one example anyway: it was literally a “for instance”. There are many others. The fundamental point is that for a woman to go through not just one but three pregnancies and births alone and never need any help at all is not something that I can imagine a woman choosing to do because she can’t be bothered going to the doctor or because she’s a sh1t parent.

Which is what the poster was claiming.

Yes you can and the death and injury rate is not insignificant. WAY above the levels of deaths in childbirth in western society generally.

So the idea that a woman would choose to do that three times while also intending to abandon the baby afterward just beggars belief.

However in the absence of any information we’ll have to agree to differ on that.