There but for the grace of God ......
I don’t often do rant but this has really got to me and I need to get it off my chest somehow.
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=496235&in_page_id=1879
For those of you who hate the whole link thing, here’s a summary.
Fran Lyon is 22. She was doing a degree at the University of Edinburgh. She discovered she was pregnant. She decided to keep the baby. So far, it’s a fairly common story.
Then Fran and her partner (the father of her baby) split up as a result of her discovery that he was engaged in activities she regarded as both illegal and immoral. There was an incident and she was forced to call the police as she feared for her safety. The police informed social services, as they are duty bound to do in all domestic violence cases.
Fran had suffered from mental illness during her teens as a result of being raped. She self harmed and was treated for what is known in mental health jargon as Borderline Personality Disorder. She was discharged at the age of 18 and has lived a fully functional life ever since. She also suffers from a condition called angiodema which causes breathing difficulties and has necessitated her having a permanent tracheotomy to deal with episodes. She informed social workers of her history as she didn’t want to be seen to be hiding anything.
A short time later she was summoned to a case conference. There she was informed that social workers had sought the opinion of a consultant paediatrician, Martin Ward Platt in view of her history. It was considered that her previous history of self harm might lead to her developing Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy (MsbP) a condition that leads parents to harm their children in order to have them admitted to hospital as they crave the attention. Therefore, her baby (already named Molly) would be removed a birth by social workers and put into foster care.
MSbP is a somewhat controversial, to put it mildly. It is a very difficult condition to diagnose as the only real evidence is that episodes of serious illness only occur when the parent is alone with the child and cease when the parent is removed from the child. In the last few years there have been several cases where it was diagnosed and parents sent to gaol as a result only to have their sentences overturned when new medical evidence was unearthed. The case of Sally Clark, who died recently, is the most high profile of these.
Fran was distraught but attempted to cooperate with Social Services. She offered to be monitored in a mother and baby unit and she took psychological evaluations. However, she also contacted a solicitor, the press and campaigners like John Hemming, MP to assist her. This situation continued until the beginning of November, when she received Social Services’ “birth plan” in the post. The plan stated that she would be allowed physical contact with her daughter only until the umbilical cord was cut. The baby would then be removed and she would not be allowed to see her unless supervised by a social worker. She would not be allowed to breastfeed in case she ingested a poisonous substance in an attempt to harm the baby. If she attempted to resist the police would be called.
This was the last straw. Fran moved to Birmingham, the constituency of her supporter John Hemming, in the hope that social services there would take a more reasonable approach. Eventually, with only five weeks to go until her due date and this terrible “birth plan” still being adhered to by the new social services department, she got on a plane last week and went to Sweden. I don’t blame her.
Why has this story affected me so much? In the dim and distant days of the 70s before MSbP had even been heard of I was a new mother just barely out of my teens with a sickly newborn. Every time he fed he vomited most of it up - very violet projectile vomiting which was extremely frightening. Oddly enough, it never happened when the Health Visitor or the GP were present. I sill don’t know why to this day. The HV was convinced I was imagining things because I had post natal depression and kept telling me this at every opportunity. This went on for six weeks until offspring finally obliged and upchucked all over the GP’s shoes. GP instantly diagnosed a condition called pyloric stenosis (a swelling of sphincter at the entrance to the stomach and fairly common). He was operated on the following day. I can only imagine what would have happened these days if the spectre of MSbP had been raised. There but for the grace of God …..
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at social workers. They do a bloody difficult job in dreadful circumstances. All I am asking is why this young woman can’t be given the chance she is asking for to prove she can be a good mother. OK, so social services may be privy to information we don’t have but unlike many who are allowed to keep their children she has no record of harming anyone except herself. It seems madness to me.
Phew! Will stop rambling now. Sorry for the length.
MM