It is easy to judge a woman who abandons her vulnerable newborn baby as callous, uncaring and evil. Last week, one-day-old Simphiwe was found in an open field in Diepkloof, Soweto, wearing just a nappy on a freezing winter day.

Child Welfare Africa revealed that more than 2000 children are abandoned in South Africa annually.

Are these women heinous creatures who should have used contraceptives in the first place, considered abortion or adoption or kept their children despite the hardships?

Marihet Infantino, manager of the child and family unit of Johannesburg Child Welfare, who dealt with Simphiwe's case, knows all too well that these questions are not simple to answer.

While she agrees that it is hard not to judge mothers who abandon their offspring, it is necessary to have a full understanding of the situation.

"It is difficult not to point fingers, but we have to distance ourselves from judgment and look at the circumstances.

"What is happening in that person's head?"

She explains that many women - particularly young women with postpartum depression, a lack of support or acceptance and, of course, poverty- simply can't cope with the thought of having a child.

"Most often the situation is so desperate that the mother simply does not think about what she is doing. There is no reasonable or logical thought about it. It is most often an emotional situation. She thinks 'I'm desperate, I can't cope, my family won't accept this, let's just rather dump and forget about it'," says Infantino.

" Simphiwe's mother may have thought that undressing the baby and putting her in a soccer bag would make it more difficult to identify her. She was not thinking about the child and the cold at the time."

There is also a detachment from the child that mothers in better circumstances might not understand.

"A bond is established after the baby is born and the mother has had time to adjust. It is not always that a mother will love that child from the start," says Infantino.

"While it is a life-changing event, many, many mothers have rejected the child from the time it was in the womb. And if the circumstances make it more difficult, the mother will not have any emotional attachment to the child."

She says socio-economic circumstances play a major role in abandonment.

"Clinics do not alway have resources and access to contraceptives for teenagers or older mothers. We also find that nurses and clinic sisters aren't always accommodating, especially of younger mothers. That is the reality on the ground."

Childline's Joan van Niekerk agrees: "We have found that clinic sisters will tell a young mother that they're too young to fall pregnant, they're irresponsible . and by then it is too late. We need to ask, 'What can we do to help this person?'," she says.

"A desperate mother doesn't see the baby as a living creature, she sees it rather as a situation," says Van Niekerk.

Many post-partum women leave state hospitals without their emotional or psychological fitness to take care of their child having been assessed.

"Post-natal services are extremely poor for the women in this country. In 24 hours they have to leave the hospital and nobody checks if that mother has post-natal depression, or if she is emotionally mature.

"Nobody asks if they are able to cope financially, do they have a support system at home? That has to happen right at the beginning of pregnancy so that mothers are not discharged into a situation of nothingness. We need much more preventative work done pre- and post-birth."

Van Niekerk says her experience shows that a lack of support is a major reason for children being abandoned.

"There is too much mother-blaming in this country. We don't look further than 'that mother who dumped her child'. That may be the final act of abandonment, but where does the first act of abandonment come from? Most often it is the partner and family," she says.

"We need to look at the psychology of men who never engage with their partners as well as the psychology of a mother who abandons her child.

"Abandonment is linked to the failure of the partner to engage with the mother of the child or the child him- or herself. In actual fact, many children are abandoned by mothers left to raise children on their own.

"There are reasons mothers cannot bond with their newborn children and maintain that bond.

"In some instances abandonment is seen as creating a better opportunity by those who have been abandoned themselves."

And these pitiful stories do not always end there.

Once their circumstances have changed, mothers return - often with a supportive family member or partner - and try to reclaim their child.

"The new Children's Act says if a child has not been contacted by his or her parent for a period of three months, the child is deemed adoptable," says Infantino.

"Consider the child. If the parent does not make contact for a year, what does it say about your commitment to the child?

"People may take this time to get over these fears, and come back to reclaim their children, but in that interim, we are preparing the child for adoption.

"We have had to tell parents, 'Sorry it's too late. '"

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Fri Aug 26 22:27:40 SAST 2016 ::

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