Let's be realistic, its 2013 and yes bad things do happen, but lets keep it in the realms of likely happenings.
The mental health act can ONLY be used to treat patients with a confirmed mental pathology, the woman had bipolar and so was either in a deep depression or a manic pychotic high. It can only be used if the person is a risk to themselves or others. This evidently was the case with this woman as they used the 'Mental Health Act' (not the mental capacity act) therefore they must have used a Compulsory Treatment Order, read up on it, I think its section 63. The law is very specific, if used incorrectly it is considered illegal restraint/kidnap and serious assault. Staff and doctors don't risk this kind of thing, especially in these curcumstsnces!
She was sectioned, this indicates that she was not just having an acute panic attack. Having spent a few months in a UK's asylum (they are closing them) with sectioned patients, I can confirm nobody was there with simply minor mental health issues. Panic attacks or mild depression does not get you sectioned! I was examined on all the laws and legislation/regulations, it is all very specific and regulated. Also, it was 5 weeks later she had her delivery following sectioning, this says much about her likely persistent poor mental health and probable long term poor compliance with her drugs, requiring some months of new re-treatment.
Asylums are not a nice place, but they have their use. They are expensive and full, I am confident regarding the desicion, not just to put her in, but to keep her in for 5 weeks, that if she wasn't sectioned there would have beeen a risk to mum and baby. It is not a flippant desicion and especislly for 5 weeks, that is a lot of doctors, staff, social workers and patient defenders meeting her and seeing her. Likewise for the C-section, think of all the staff involved, it would have been a very unpleasant and melancholic intervention that nobody would have wanted.
Assuming she could not have a natural delivery due to capacity or behaviour or for medical reasons, what other option was there? Obviously had she been perfectly well and able to deliver as normal, this would be the worst medical atrocity I have heard of in recent years, but nobody is claiming this. We don't know the in's and outs, it may have been a complicstion, a known shoulder dystonia or a baby >4.5kg or simply and likely.... the mother could not co-operate with the birth. Antipsychotics and mood stabilisers (lithium) make the birth that bit more complex too. Again, at this point she was 5 weeks in section and returned to section after the delivery, indicating it was an issue of mums mental health, also she was sedated, she was possibly being very difficult, which one must put in her health context as it is unpleasant to consider. She must have had a horrendous experience, being unwell during this whole event too, the poor woman must have gone to hell and back.
It's not my place to point fingers for compliance, but in honesty I do wonder why she would stop taking her mood stabiliser medication? Despite the awful results maybe it was fear of drug side efrects on pregnancy? Maybe the pregancy worsened her mental state, a common occurence due to hormone changes, either way it is very sad.
Once the baby was delivered, the mother was still too unwell to leave the asylum or care for her baby. The only options were to bring a baby into an asylum..... trust me having worked in one for two months they are not the place for babies, or sending the baby to America to a non blood relative of the mother. The courts could apparantly do neither. They had to make a decision there and then, literally, once the baby is born where does it go? Who feeds it? Who cares for it? The mother was obviously unwell and unable to care for the baby as she still qualified for section, meaning she was a harm to herself whereas previously it msy have been harm to her baby that was the focus of the sectioning.
For how long can nurses in an asylum care for a baby? Within hours they had to find a home. It looks like they had to make hard desicions quickly and maybe they didnt make the best desicions, but what CAN be done is often different to what we would like done. I am sure it pained the people involved to do what they did. I have worked with these teams, they are just normal people.
This is an awful and heart wrenching story, but doctors, nurses, social services and even the court staff are largely good willed. I have never seen otherwise in my experience. I have seen mothers and babies seperated, my friends wife is a midwife and some women will go so far as give birth alone So as to keep her baby. But that is half the story, they have no home, no food, the baby is born addicted to drugs and requiring methadone from birth. Its common, its sad and we live in a world where we have a protective system ready....thankfully.
Sometimes the system may pick up the wrong people.....was this woman one...... its easy to judge from afar, but knowing how bad bipolar csn be for some patients, I really doubt it.
Terrible things have happened in the past, terrible mistakes are made now, but this story sounds like rocks and hard places... With possible headlines like 'Mother & Baby hurt when bipolar mother was released from asylum with newborn'......maybe it was a case of choosing lesser evils...?
very sad.... But evil?
p.s. I have no idea what the laws are on returning children to people at risk of relapse of bipolar activity, perhaps due to poor compliance with meds. But it really sounds wrong that she isn't allowed her child back now she has recovered. Maybe they know more than we do due to condfidentislity, maybe for example she has had repeated breakdowns due to poor drug compliance, making it very, very hard to decide whst to do. But with a well and healthy mother, obviously the baby is better with their mum.
