From my point of view...at the end of the article, the mum-to-be said social services wouild allow her to stay in a mother and baby home - which she refused.
As I see it, rather than, '10 minutes after birth we are taking your child', the first approach, they should have offered the mother and baby home first , or even allowing the mother to care for her baby, under supervision in the hospital.
A little of my history - I had Bi-polar depresson for 7 years, from the age of 11-18 had an extremely ******** insane period about 6 years ago , self-harmed, attempted suicide , the lot . Because of some other stuff in my past, I WAS considered a potential risk to my child when I got pregnant 4 years ago - I was stable by that point, but they never knew if the added pressure of having a kid might tip me over.
They helped me out a lot - they made it possible for me to have an extended stay in hospital to ensure I was bonding with my child and knew how to care for it ( and I'm glad they did, she was born with a pneumonial infection that was only picked up after I mentioned she snored when suckling), for a healh visitor to visit me every two days and phone every day, and for me to have a gp appointment every week to see how I was coping.
I'm glad they did all this for me . I came down with PND avout 3 months after my daughters birth, and while I never considered harming my daughter, its scary to know how quickly you can slide back into depression when you think you've kicked it.
Social services should have offered more help - protect the child, yes. Take it away without letting the mother even have the chance to prove herself, no.
I proved myself. It was a struggle, and I didn't do it without a good deal of help from social services and health professionals, but I did. I've had three unmedicated and undepressed years, my daughter is happy any healthy (and a pain in the backside to boot) and social service's now have very minimal interference in my life ( they phone every six months or so to see if I'm still bearing up well, and have contact with my GP in case I ever come down with depression again).