A total of 145 babies were abandoned by their mothers across Gauteng public hospitals in 2020, revealed Nomathemba Mokgethi, the health member of the Executive Council (MEC) in this province Wednesday.
Mokgethi made the disclosure when responding to a question posed by a member of the Gauteng legislature Jack Bloom.
MEC Mokgethi said some of the babies were abandoned due to their disabilities, inadequate financial and emotional support from fathers, socio-economic challenges. Some babies were left in hospitals due to unwanted pregnancies and some were born to undocumented mothers.
Nadene Grabham, the operations director at Door of Hope Children’s Mission, a Johannesburg-based charity that takes in abandoned babies, said 70 babies were accepted last year.
“Some of the abandonment is violent, with the intent to kill,” Grabham said.
Despite the existence of options to assist women who abandon their babies, including organizations such as Crisis Pregnancy Center, Grabham said moms were not aware of them. As Door of Hope began noticing that older babies were being abandoned, she speculated the pandemic exacerbated the problem of baby abandonment.
More than 1,700 babies have been saved by Door of Hope since its establishment in 1999. Enditem
