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Mother of Abandoned Sask. Baby Probably "Pretty Scared," Say Police, Experts

Posted on: Monday, 5 February 2007, 21:00 CST

By JENNIFER GRAHAM

REGINA (CP) - One is a tiny baby, born helpless and then abandoned outside on a frigid winter day. The other is a mother, likely quite young herself, who also felt helpless and alone.

The weekend discovery of a newborn on a Saskatoon doorstep has raised troubling questions about what might cause a mother to leave her child. "It doesn't happen very often," said Katreena Scott, an assistant professor and clinical psychologist at the University of Toronto.

"But it is the case that infants are the most likely abandoned."

One reason, explained Scott, is that a young mother may have been hiding her pregnancy from friends and family.

"Then when the baby's born, they have to figure out something to do with the baby," she said. "That's when some of the abandonments and homicides happen."

In the Saskatoon case, the infant, perhaps no more than an hour old, was wrapped in a towel and comforter. She was found on the back step of a home as the temperature dipped to -29 C.

Police went door-to-door Saturday and Sunday to find out if anyone knew of a young woman who had recently given birth or who may have been pregnant, but as of Monday they had little success.

"We haven't had luck in finding the mother," said police spokeswoman Alyson Edwards.

"The possibility is that this is a young person, a child, a young teen, perhaps a young woman," said Edwards. "We won't be ruling anything out, but certainly it looks like it's somebody that's probably pretty scared right now.

"This young woman is afraid, and she's afraid obviously for a reason."

Police were asking anyone with information to come forward.

Scott said a lot teens in such situations may be concerned that they shouldn't have been sexually active. They may have parents who disapprove or there may be peer pressure to hide a pregnancy, she said.

They're pregnant and they don't know what to do, said Scott, and now they've had the baby "and really don't know what to do."

"Birth itself is often a traumatic experience," she noted.

"For a young teen sometimes they've had their babies . . . in a home, in a bathroom, in a bathtub, alone."

The little girl in Saskatoon is described as a healthy, full-term baby. She was taken to hospital and is now under the care of social services.

If the mother is not found, the baby would be declared a Crown ward and eventually placed for adoption. If the mother does come forward, then it would be a more complicated process of trying to assess what happened and what the reasonable consequence for her is of her behaviour, said Scott.

Police have said that while criminal charges are possible, it depends on the circumstances of the child's abandonment.

"We're not looking to go out and arrest this girl and put her in jail and pursue charges against her unless we feel it's really necessary," said Edwards.

"What we want most of all is to find out who the mom is and what the circumstances were leading up to this baby being left on a doorstep."

Source: Canadian Press

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