Sometimes it scares the emotional blindness of social services administrations that, instead of caring for people in difficulty, destroy them. Last week a young couple, without resources, were parents for the first time. Both are psychic disabled And they have no home. They have cautiously removed custody of his two-day-old daughter.
The little girl was born without problems and the mother welcomed her with the same tenderness as the other moms, initiating the creation of a strong emotional bond and breastfeeding. But 48 hours after birth, social services intervened and were taken out of custody cautiously for fear that they could not attend to it. They separated her from her parents. They took her without more. The police had to grab the father who, desperately, tried to prevent the little girl from being ripped from her side.
And I think about what a baby separated from his mother should feel without being able to understand his absence and the lack of his body, his smell, his breast and his gaze.
Disabled associations across Spain are pushing for help to the couple instead of harming that family by separating it. The Board defends itself by saying that they do not intend to break the bond, but to guarantee the protection of the child, since their parents do not really have the resources to attend it.
They have already attacked the base of the link and have made these people suffer, they have separated a baby from their mother without proving that it was harming him to be by her side. Instead of doing this the logical thing, the human thing, would be to take care of the parents and help them by all possible means. Possibly their economic and personal situation, in addition to their disability, prevent them from caring for the child alone, but do you really have to do this instead of providing support?
Given this impassibility of social services that demonstrate, with these actions, their blindness to emotional and physical needs, as well as a baby's food, I get scared. I think they made a mistake. The first solution is not to separate families. Your obligation is to provide them with the help and support necessary to ensure adequate and dignified conditions for the baby and his parents.
People who ensure the safety of babies would have to be aware of how important the bond that is created at birth is, what a baby needs to be with their mother, and that breastfeeding is essential.
Some psychically disabled can be good parents. With help, they could.
