Raped teen mothers refuse to breastfeed

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KESCPR) has been caught in a profound moral dilemma. How can the human rights of baby mothers, victims of gruesome child abuse, be reconciled with the right to survival of the newborn?

Two teenage unwed mothers lodged in the Nirbhaya Home, both of them victims of the vilest form of child abuse, have refused to feed their newborns.

The doctors who had helped deliver the babies are said to have insisted that the teenage mothers feed the babies. The girls, one of whom is still not out of school, have refused to even look at the neonates.

According to the doctors, newborns need mother’s colostrum (the first milk produced during the late stages of pregnancy) for their survival. “The infants have done nothing wrong but how can we force a baby mother to go through the stages of motherhood when she has not even come to terms with her strange and appalling plight,” said P Usha, who heads the Nirbhaya Home in the capital.

Child Welfare Committee member Sheela said the baby mothers could not be faulted for their vehement denial of their own blood.

“One of them was raped by her father’s brother and the other by her own father. The psychological trauma these girls suffer every minute of their lives is so deep that they even detest themselves. Forcing them to feed their newborn will only multiply their distress,” Ms Sheela said.

There are innumerable instances where the mother dies during pregnancy. “It is tragic, but don’t these children survive,” she asks.

According to child rights activist Fr Philip Parakatt, it is up to the abuse victim to decide whether to bring up the baby or surrender her for adoption.

It is also felt that any kind of emotional attachment with the newborns will impede attempts to pull the girls out of their unfortunate plight. “These girls too have a future, they cannot be tied to their past,” Usha said.

But newborns, who too have done nothing wrong, also have rights. “We need to find a way, evolve a protocol, where the rights of both the mother and child are protected,” Usha said. Like for instance, extracting milk from the mother. She has taken the issue to the KESCPR, which is now seized of the matter.