General Chat

Very very sad.

Its so so sad!!!

8 1/2 months

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/2440713/British-mother-charged-with-murdering-newborn-baby-in-Crete.html

Yes Eldrick but at what stage of pregency??is what I meant,,,,,

The woman was arrested on suspicion of strangling her baby after giving birth in a hotel room in the resort of Malia

It was a newly born child.

What is being termed here as a** Baby,**,

1 -5months 6-9 months, ??,we dont know.

That is no different to any other country in the world....even here in the UK a person is charged with murder - or any offence - as long as there is sufficient evidence to make a prima facie case.

The charges can always be amended at a later stage. It is the principal that a person cannot be held in custody unless they are charged with an offence within a time limit.

A murder investigation goes on for a long time after someone is charged.

If anyone wants me to delete this then just say!

I just think its so sad that they charged her with "murder" before any investigation is carried out!

xx

On the point of a young person knowing whther or not she was pregnant, or rather showing as such, The daughter of a cousin presented at hospital with suspected (to her) severe stomach pains. Her mother was gobsmacked to be told by nurse that daughter was pregnant and ready to deliver. She had never put on weight and, according to her, completely oblivious of the fact that she was pregnant. I think there would be many recorded occasions of this situation, so maybe the poor girl did not know she was pregnant.

On the matter of postpartum depression I do have some experience. My Mil suffered this in the '30's with her second pregnancy. She was advised to have no more children but had another about 14 years later. Same result but more severe repercussions, particularly when second son was drowned at a summer scouting camp. This left her partially mentally incapacitated with many visits to psychiatric hospitals, etc.

We should wait and see what a medical assessment of the girl shows.

Agree, LIZ , we shouldn`t be judgemental till we hear all the facts,
Ros xx

I know many people don't think it can happen but you often read of women, especially younger ones, giving birth quite unexpectedly or finding out they are pregnant when they have bad pain and are told on attending a hospital in panic, thinking appendicitis or whatever, that they are in labour.
This could be what happened to this girl and I don't feel we should judge right now, until the true facts come out.
I can't see any 20 yr old booking up a holiday and going away with friends, knowing she could give birth at any moment, even if she had been trying to conceal the pregnancy.
It is very sad that the baby died. I hope this girl is getting support along with medical treatment and will be fairly treated by the authorities there.

Lizxx

Thats horrible Kathryn the poor women.
I think there is a bit of a problem at times seperating regular post partum depression from psychosis.
You have the obvious ones with hallucinations and things that stand out to their families and health practitioners,then you have some that are more obscure.
The person I had weeks after the birth was frantically hiding all the knives and scissors in her house whilst trying to pretend all was well.
There is a shocking lack of mental health services worldwide for post partum women.
We all have to be aware.
fortunately midwives visit for 6 weeks out here then plunket visits on a fairly regular basis,but after diagnosis it is still quite difficult to get people help.
There is still also a lot of misconception about postpartum depression,lots of women are still told to snap out of it or feel that somehow they are just poor mothers so we still need a whole lot more education

Tania -- a therapist in Toronto suffering from post-partum psychosis committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway with her baby in her arms a few years ago. The family knew she was suicidal and had her under 24-hour watch, but she sneaked out of the house.

-------------------------------------------------------

http://www.mcmanweb.com/postpartum.html

In August 2000, Suzanne Killinger-Johnson, 37, a Toronto medical doctor practicing as a psychologist and described by a fellow former medical student as a woman "every guy at med school had a crush on," jumped in front of a subway train with her six-month-old baby in her arms.

Ironically, her mother, also a psychotherapist, had written a book that contained this quote: "A lot of folks don't know what's cooking until the pot boils over."

... The same AP article goes on to say that in the UK, all new mothers are evaluated for postpartum depression before they are sent home, and nurses make two mandatory home visits to check for symptoms within 40 days of childbirth. In the US, New York and New Jersey are the only states that require hospitals to give mothers information on postpartum depression.

My daughter had a concealed pregnancy age 16 and 3 months , I was a midwife at the time and did ask her if she was pregnant but was told "Don`t be stupid , Mum ", but 8 weeks later Craig was born . She`s now 28 , just about to start final year at Uni studying Social Work and her son is a clever boy entering High School this year. It was the end of the world at the time , Ros xxx

Well said Kathryn.

love T.x

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone (and it seems to be almost everyone indeed) who declined to rush to judgment.

I think many women can imagine scenarios that we ourselves may have narrowly escaped, when it comes to unwanted pregnancies.

If only young women were prepared for the reality -- that unwanted pregnancy happens, it happens to a large proportion of us at one time or another, and that it has to be dealt with, that denying it won't make it go away. It happens to teenagers who don't understand risks and consequences, more mature women whose best contraceptive efforts fail, married women not wanting a child now or another child.

Instead, we are taught that it is a shameful thing that only happens to bad or stupid women and girls, and so if it happens to us, we must be bad or stupid. And some young women, especially, simply fail to deal with their reality in any way until they can no longer ignore or deny it -- when there's a baby -- and they just have no plan to deal with it and they do the unthinkable, because anything else is just unthinkable for them.



And no, Dermot. NO babies were aborted, in England or anywhere else in the world, last year or any year. Whatever that might have had to do with anything. You might want to go play someplace where the women like your kind of vile anti-woman nonsense.

Kay,

I read that on the BBC news site too. Another news station is reporting that she is a student with 2 youngsters. Although both seem to agree that she had only recently arrived out there,....

love Theresa

She went out there on holiday with her sister and a friend,

whats been released by HO are bare facts,,and just an outline,

Poor Girl
I hope the embassy staff get in their very quickly for her I cant imagine a murder charge in a foreign country.
Absolutely anything could have happened out there,what she needs is medical and psychiatric help and a bloody good lawyer not judgement.
Eldrick is quite right about infanticide.
There is a very serious condition called postpartum psychosis which affects about 1 :1000 women.
It can occur anytime in the first year,or so.
I have only seen it twice in my career,once was a few weeks after the birth but one was literally within minutes,
In this condition around 5% will committ suicide and around 4 % will committ infanticide without any knowledge of what they are doing

With regards to getting on a flight if your lucky and not showing to much you can pretty much get a cert easily signed by a doctor, however I suspect she was already living and working out there, just cos you get a work permit doesn't stop consular intervention and representation if you are a brit cit. in trouble

Tracey