[Ms. Trunchbull, from the movie, "Matilda"]
Posted on 11/20/2007 7:17:44 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Mother-to-be flees as social workers warn her they will take her baby away at birth
By PAUL SIMS
20th November 2007
A mother-to-be has fled her home after social workers threatened to take her baby within minutes of the birth.
Fran Lyon, 22, hopes a new local authority will take a different approach.
She insists that the mental health problems she had as a teenager - she started self-harming at 15 and has been treated at psychiatric hospitals for borderline personality disorder - are now behind her and there is no evidence she will harm her child.
Miss Lyon moved out of Hexham after receiving a copy of her "birth plan" from social services at Northumberland County Council.
It says she will be given a maximum of 15 minutes with her baby - who she has already named Molly - before she is taken into care.
She is now in the Birmingham Yardley constituency of Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has taken up her case and is campaigning to overturn the decision.
Miss Lyon said she had been hounded out of her home by a "barbaric" decision and felt she had no choice but to move if she is to have any chance of keeping her baby.
She added: "It is a sad indictment of a local authority in the way they have dealt with an expectant mother who has tried to co-operate with some of the most extreme measures imaginable."
Miss Lyon said social workers fear she is likely to develop Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. The controversial condition is said to lead mothers to seek attention by harming their child or claiming it is ill.
"I have been told that I am not even to breastfeed my child in case I try to poison her," she said.
"As far as I am concerned, the birth plan is abusive and I will just not stand for it. It would leave Molly isolated from anybody who loves her from the first few minutes of her life. It is barbaric and it deprives her of a basic right."
She hopes Birmingham City Council will review the case, but admitted: "I don't know what's going to happen. It's a waiting game at the moment."
Miss Lyon became involved with social services in July after a domestic incident involving her former partner.
At a subsequent meeting, she revealed her history of mental health problems and was told they would be taking action to remove her child once she is born in January.
Munchausen's - first identified by Sir Roy Meadow during the 1970s - has been at the heart of a series of miscarriages of justice.
Sir Roy was responsible for evidence that led to the wrongful convictions of Angela Cannings and Sally Clark for murdering their children. Mrs Clark died earlier this year.
Miss Lyon has appealed for a place in a mother and baby unit so she can look after her child under supervision.
Northumberland County Council said last night: "Where a child or unborn baby is subject to a child protection plan and they move to another local authority area, responsibility would normally pass to the new authority.
"A transfer conference is arranged as soon as possible and the family and their support are usually invited to attend. The existing plan is discussed, but the new authority makes its own decisions about how to proceed.
"Northumberland County Council would make sure the new authority has all the relevant information it needs to make informed decisions."
Mr Hemming is chairman of the Justice for Families organisation and believes councils are now taking more babies to meet Government adoption targets.
He said of Miss Lyon's case: "What could be more traumatic than for a mother to have her baby taken away at birth? It's monstrous.
"That, in itself, can cause mental health problems which are then used by social services against the mother as a reason not to return the baby. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"There has been a massive increase in younger babies being taken into care before there is even any evidence of harm."
The MP, married with four children, made headlines in 2005 when he fathered a love child after a six-year affair with his personal assistant.
Well, actually, they do. "She started self-harming at 15 and has been treated at psychiatric hospitals for borderline personality disorder...."
She may be fine now. Or she may not. The troubling aspects are "self-harming," and the plural "hospitals" -- which suggests that "self-harming" was an ongoing issue.
The rule for stories like this is that they're written from a particular perspective. The media will skew and massage and trim the facts -- or even manufacture them -- so as to fit the desired result. We see it all the time.
So: discounting for the media spin, what do you suppose really drove the social workers to take such a drastic step, which is evidently a quite unusual one (Else, why would it merit a story at all)>
Cute, but ineffective.
WTF.
W T F.
Shouldn’t she at least get a chance to raise her kid before the government barges in and takes her away to be raised by Lord knows who, or worse yet, a government-run orphanage?
There is zero cost to cps when they are right or wrong. The entire cost is borne by the families.
“I work with the dx on occasion. I have seen young borderlines grow up and lead terrific lives. Personally I think many young women between 12 and 24 could code as borderline but time grows them up.”
I’m a female and between my new monthly friend, boys I swore I couldn’t live without, parents who were too square and “didn’t understand”, homework that got in the way, telephone calls that HAD to be made, etc. etc. I can honestly say that if you asked my parents if I had a personality disorder, they’d say YES.
What do you mean?
Surely you can’t be so naive as to believe that this stops with taking the baby from a few mothers-to-be do you?
Sigh, There are a lot of non-government solutions to this situation, but I’ll be damned if I’m willing to throw away my grandkids freedoms just to possibly save a baby or two today.
I know I’m powerless to stop this tragedy for occurring. The State will take the baby.
Anyone with even a smidgen of understanding of human nature, history, and especially government, can see this is going to end with the deaths of hundreds of thousands, most likely millions.
My relatives are buried in Russia as proof of the above. Or maybe the government never bothered. Who knows?
My fore-fathers fled Russia ahead of the crushing weight of the government you are siding with. They left behind those who ended up killed by the kind of government ‘help’ you are defending.
I’m calling it a day, that even here on FR there are some so easily seduced is too depressing.
That depends, doesn't it? Are you perhaps suggesting that you'd never take a newborn child away, no matter what the mental state of the mother?
It may be a bureaucratic overreach, or it may not. All I really know is that this reads like a typical nedia sob-story, and if experience is any guide, it's almost certain that they're leaving out some important information.
Such as, what it is about the girl's current mental state that triggered their concern that "she is likely to develop Munchausen's syndrome by proxy?"
I'll bet there's a whole lot more to this story.
It really depends what her history is. This sounds like a case of “more to the story”. Just how much “self harming” did she engage in? How recently? How have things gone in the various mental hospitals she’s been treated at? What was that domestic incident with her former partner all about? Is he the father? Is he crazy and violent? Is she yearning to get back together with him anyway?
I noticed that too and wondered how a breast feeding mother could tamper with breastmilk without poisoning herself. Much easier to tamper with formula.
Apparently these social workers can’t think their way out of a wet paper sack.
However, it should be pointed out that the media rarely goes against the government when it's doing things "for the children." And it is especially heartless to send a bland form letter, they called it a "birth plan" (O_o), informing her that the government is only going to give her 15 minutes with her child before they take it away, presumably forever, or for several months, which for a newborn infant is just about as good as forever. Even it is necessary, there are better ways to inform her than a nice crisp sheet of A5 with government letterhead. PS: I know I've got my choler up over this, but please don't take this as an attack on you. You're being perfectly reasonable in suspecting the media of highlighting this for its sensationalism value. :)
Well, golly. Actually, I'm not naive enough to take a media sob-story at face value.
More to the point, I actually tried to discern what might have prompted the social workers to act as they did -- on the possibility that they might (gasp!) have actually had a valid reason.
And, interestingly, I found one -- right there in the story. They feared that the girl "is likely to develop Munchausen's syndrome by proxy." Given the girl's recent history of "self-harming," and multiple stints in mental hospitals, a reasonable person might actually give some credence to their suspicions.
But hey ... if you want to blindly trust a media sob-story because it suits your own biases, please continue. Just leave me out of it.
That it does ... unless you've got a hobby horse all saddled and ready to go.
There's also no definition for personality disorders. Every person on the face of the Earth can be evaluated with a "personality disorder", even you, according to someone's criteria.
Are you willing to take anyone's criteria as a maxim?
The scarf in post 2 looked a little odd to me (just seemed a bit out of place style-wise). Compare the view in post 3. There is some kind of blue band/thing that the scarf is covering up. What did she do to her neck?
Yes, and I bet a lot of it is the history of an incompetent socialized medical bureaucracy giving both neglectful and useless care haphazardly and randomly to this woman since she was 15.
And now they want to practice on the baby. Do you really think there is a practioner out there so brilliant and dedicated that they can successfully predict a patient developing a syndrome like Munchausen's by Proxy?????
Total Twilight Zone. It is definitely bureaucratic overreach.
Unless she has other crap going on that is not mentioned in this artical, there is no way that social services can surmise that she would harm her child due to the fact that she cut herself.
bump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.