Mother Found Guilty
A baby in danger of sliding into institutional care
This is number 46 of fifty pieces of poetry and prose written by Peter Limbrick as a monument to adults and children who have lived and died or are living now in inhuman situations. They are all inspired by real experience.
Mother Found Guilty
We need to talk to you about your baby.
We could not do everything we wanted to do in
the examination because he was crying so much.
But we think we have the picture now and, I have
to say, it is as we expected.
His weight and growth are both well below what
they should be, but we appreciate feeding is
difficult because of his swallowing problems. He is
becoming a bit stiffer than he was last year as we
told you he would.
To answer your questions about the fits, they will
continue now that they have started. The
medication we can put him on today might help
control them. Time will tell. His reflexes are
immature. We have checked his eyes and ears as
best we can in the circumstances. We think he can
hear and see but we can’t be sure how much. You
should assume he can understand very little of
what is going on around him. Altogether, it is not a
very promising picture.
If you remember, when he was ready to be
discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit
we tried to explain to you that the difficult birth
had starved him of oxygen and caused brain
damage. We told you then he would not develop
normally and what we have seen today has
confirmed all of that.
You young mums always think you know best, that
you know more than the doctors. We cannot
agree with you about the progress you think you
have seen. His smiles are not proper smiles and we
do not think he stops crying just because your
husband has come home from work. There is
probably another reason.
It is good you are singing to him and playing those
games you have told us about, but please do not
imagine he is taking them in like a normal baby
would. We told you then you could leave the baby
in hospital but you would not hear of it. You didn’t
want to believe any of the things we were telling
you about what the future would hold. I have to go
to a meeting now. We have given you much more
time than we give the other mothers.
I will get someone to bring you a cup of tea. If you
decide you want to leave the baby with us, just let
the nurse know.”
The other 49 pieces can be seen here:
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 1 to 10)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 11 to 20)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 21 to 30)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 31 to 40)
In Mind - a written monument to all people with intellectual disability. (Items 41 to 50)
