'Forced Birth' Mother Could Not Care For Child, Essex Social Services Say

Huffington Post UK ^ | 12/03/2013 | Jessica Elgot

[JerseyanExile]

The Italian mother at the centre of an care scandal involving the removal of her baby by Essex social services was far too unwell to care for her child, Essex Council has said.

A statement from the council, shedding light on the case which generated a media-storm, explains that the woman in question has two children already in the care system in Italy.

The Telegraph's Christopher Booker had originally described the woman as having had "something of a panic attack" on a two-week training course at Stansted.

However, in the newly released judgment from Judge Newton, he says the woman "has had a number of very intrusive paranoid delusions" and "was profoundly unwell".

The judgment mentions her two other children, C and D, saying: "C has been particularly upset by the experiences which she has had to witness, that she has been both traumatised and indeed has been terrorised, not by the mother's behaviour, but by what it is that she has witnessed and in particular her mother being profoundly unwell."

The mother had restricted access to her children, on the wishes of the grandparents, the judge said.

...After five weeks in their care, "a clinical decision was made to deliver her unborn baby by c-section because of concerns about risks to mother and child," the council said, adding that the mother had seen her child on the day of birth.

Essex's Social Services obtained an Interim Care Order from the County Court "because the mother was too unwell to care for her child". The mother has two other children which she is unable to care for due to orders made by the Italian authorities.

Social workers tried extensively to place the child with family members in Italy, working with extended family both before and after birth, Essex Council said.

[Rodamala]

Remember this story when your doctor asks you if you have guns in the household...

[PennsylvaniaMom]

There is a lot more to this story (regarding the mother’s mental health) than is reported.

Her behavior, “something of a panic attack” was such that her two older children were placed in protective custody in Italy. The article states that after FIVE weeks of care in Britain the mom’s mental condition caused risk towards her own physical we’ll being AS WELL AS the babies. Reading between the lines, mom has a very loose grip on reality. Was she violent (let’s say pounding her belly upon movement of the child?) what action was SO PROFOUND that the medical staff felt they HAD to intervene?

When I first read this on Drudge my gut reaction (after learning of the two older children in Italy in care of relatives) was not of “civil liberties” but a question of “if the Brits did NOT intervene, would the story be ‘Mom, in Bizarre Act, Kills Newborn.’.

As we will never learn ALL the details, I do believe that the birth mom’s condition was wildly out of control requiring either massive doses of anti psychotic drugs OR physical restraints such that in either event the unborn child would be harmed.

[the scotsman]

Her own father was in the UK press last week saying Essex Social Services did the right thing, that she is seriously mentally ill.