ARTICLE: Excerpt from Dr. Ronald Federici's Book on Helpless Children
Abandoned babies and children placed in orphanages, hospitals, "foster care" or any of these types of institutional settings, are often moved repetitively. For example, infants are often placed in some type of hospital or nursing setting for the first 1-2 years of their life and then transferred to another setting which can often last from 2-5 years. It should be emphasized that, during these critical years (birth through 4-5 years old) these institutions typically lack any and all type of stimulation, language and intellectual-cognitive development. So often, children are starved, neglected, and isolated to their cribs.
It has been well documented that many of these children have been found to be tied to their cribs or isolated and sheltered from human contact. Combined with profound medical, nutritional and often physical neglect and abuse, these children regress to very primitive states to where any and all type of sensory-motor, speech and language, and even intellectual abilities have become stagnated and, over the course of time, typically regress and deteriorate to levels where they appear truly mentally deficient when this was not the starting pattern in their lives.
Very often, children are "warehoused" in the institutional settings to where there are up to five children in a bed with literally dozens of children per on caretaker who is often completely oblivious to their physical and psychological needs. It has been this writer's experience ( Dr. Ronald S. Federici) based on visiting multiple institutions that profound levels of neglect intensify with each year the child is alive. Basic physical and nutritional needs are not provided which results in the child's brain and physical development slowing to where it is almost impossible to actually detect the age of the child. Many children have been literally tied down to their cribs for days, weeks and even months at a time, with even their feedings being given while they are in their cribs.
Babies and Children in these settings look for any type of safety and security when they are being deprived and neglected.
Dr. Ronald Federici
ARTICLE: Abandoned Babies
Dr Lorraine Sherr, a clinical psychologist from the Royal Free and University
Medical School, London, has reviewed the past 10 years of information
on abandoned babies and has interviewed adult foundlings and says the
way they were abandoned is important. She says foundlings have little
knowledge about who they are, where they come from, the date of their
birth, or even the person who found them who could act as a link to
the past. They are often scared of parenthood or feel enormous pressure
to become model parents.
"Adults who were abandoned as babies in a warm place, with a blanket
or even in a hospital, take comfort in the fact that their mother put
them somewhere safe," she said. "However, those that were obviously
left to die ...tend to suffer much more."
The researchers, who presented their findings at the annual conference
of the social psychology section of the British Psychological Society,
said yesterday the person who found the baby should be registered on
the birth certificate so the child had a chance of finding them in later
life.
"The reaction of people who find these abandoned babies is quite remarkable,"
said Dr Sherr. "They tend to feel very emotionally involved with the
child. However, the reality is that they are immediately shut out of
the process and are left feeling bereft. I have never heard of a case
where a finder has kept the child."
Her findings showed that two-thirds of the mothers of abandoned babies
were not located and fathers were hardly ever mentioned; 16 per cent
of those abandoned over the past 10 years were clearly left to die.
Home Office figures reveal that an average of 52 babies are abandoned
each year, but the number is rising steadily.
