Baby Dumping

AN average of 100 babies are reportedly abandoned a year. This number does not take into account those dumped for good without a trace.

Baby dumping is also well known as child abandonment which is mean the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one’s offspring with intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling. Baby dumping refers to parents which is generally mothers abandoning or discarding a child younger than 12 months in a public or private place with the intent of disposing it.

Poverty is often a root of child abandonment. Persons in cultures with poor social welfare systems who are not financially capable of taking care of a child are more likely to abandon them. Political conditions, such as difficulty in adoption proceeding, may also contribute to child abandonment, as can the lack institutions. Another common reason for baby dumping is teenage pregnancies. Pregnant teenagers experience problems during and after childbirth due to social and psychological distress. Abandonment is an alternative to abortion. Education, family planning, post-natal services and support for motherhood are available tools for reducing this problem.

One of the most famous cases of baby dumping is about a teen who tries to flush baby down toilet after giving birth unexpectedly a newborn baby was found dead in a toilet bowl in Tengku Ampuan Hospital in Kuantan. Kuantan OCPD Asst Comm Mohd Jasmani Yusoff said hospital personnel have detained the baby’s 16-year-old mother for investigations, reported by Berita Harian. He said that she confessed that she left the baby to drown after giving birth early on Thursday morning. The suspect, who goes to a school nearby, was in the hospital to take care of her mother who has a cancer. “When she unexpectedly gave birth, the suspect believed to have panicked and then tried to flush her baby down the toilet, which resulted in its head had being stuck in the bowl,” said ACP Mohd Jasmani who added that firemen had to break the toilet bowl to retrieve the body.

According to research, the main reason why people dump babies was fathers denying paternity. Other reasons include mothers who were still going to school, and mothers that are unaware of foster cares, adoption and institutional care.

“More dialogue is needed between men and women about their roles and responsibility as parents, students an learners in particular need to be targeted with information and options for dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and how they can continue their studies as parents,” the report say.

It also does not take into account the number of unmarried and underage girls who undergo abortions.

The report, "Baby alive when tossed from apartment" (NST, Sept 18) about a 21-year-old factory worker who threw her newborn from a third-floor apartment to conceal the illegitimate birth.

Babies have been dumped in some of the most appalling places, such as down toilet bowls, rubbish dumps, rivers, rubbish bins and abandoned buildings.

In the latest case of baby dumping, "Teen flushes newborn baby down toilet" (NST, Sept 28), a 17-year-old flushed her newborn down the toilet in Kemaman, Terengganu.

Why these teenagers do what they do, although thoroughly sickening, is quite understandable-society leaves them with no other option.

Young girls who give birth to babies out of wedlock often find themselves in a precarious situation.

Most were either deceived or cheated into having sex with their boyfriends. And when they find themselves pregnant, they are left to fend for themselves.

The girls are unable to open up to their families for fear of being disowned. The social stigma attached to premarital pregnancies forces them to conceal and abandon the babies, leading to horrifying deaths.