There have been two recent tragic Australian cases where babies have been abandoned.
Without knowing the details of the family setting, it is difficult to make specific or constructive comments. Clearly the mothers had been in a very difficult situation. Again it is impossible to comment without knowing the family situation.
For the overwhelming majority of women, the commitment to motherhood is profound. In these young women one can only sympathise with the degree of stress and anxiety which must have pushed them to the point where they felt unable to care for their newborn baby.
There has been some support for baby hatches to be made available at designated points of safety. Clearly this is early days and such a program would need much thought and planning to be effective. It may or may not prove to be useful or appropriate in our culture. Luckily abandonment such as this is rare in the extreme, and hence causes such significant social comment and concern.
One of the aims of The Babysleep Doctor program is to support a woman in the last few weeks of pregnancy and the early weeks of a baby’s life. Our aim is to avoid the difficulties which can arise, in particular with over tiredness and hunger in the early weeks of life. If we can establish high quality sleep and optimal growth in these early weeks, babies develop rapidly and their affection for their parents becomes obvious rapidly. In this situation, the parents love for their child becomes complete.
I find it difficult to resist the temptation to discuss my new grandson who, at the time of writing, is approximately six weeks old. His parents have been using their variation of my program and the baby is performing brilliantly. At six weeks of age, he is down in bed and generally asleep by about 7PM. He is sleeping through in a block, which is between eight-and-11 hours long, having a short and relatively small feed and then sleeping through until approximately 7 AM. The key to his success has simply been high quality nutrition, optimal growth and early recognition of the risks of being awake and over-handled too long. It has been a joy watching the parents bond to their new child.
So how are we able to help women in distress? In the two situations which have been in the press recently, it may have been impossible to help through normal medical channels. Neither mother may have sought any medical advice.
Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of women are supported by both family and society during their pregnancies and once the baby is born.
My aim is to support those women who seek my assistance either during, or after pregnancy. It is my experience that early intervention and early support leads to improved child, parent and family well-being.
Dr Brian Symon
The Babysleep Doctor
