Abstract
Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the
sociodemographic characteristics of the mothers who abandoned their babies
legitimately in our hospital and to determine the reasons behind the
abandonment.
Material and Method: Medical records of the newborn babies who were
abandoned in the period between January 2008 and December 2015 in our hospital and
of their mothers were reviewed retrospectively for sociodemographic
characteristics and reasons behind abandonment. Records were analyzed by using
IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA, version 20).
Results: Sixty-seven abandoned babies (girls 55.2%) were documented in the
specified period and included in the study. The number of abandoned babies was
observed to be increasing gradually in years (n=1 in 2008 and n=17 in 2015). Most
of the mothers (74.6%) had a low education level (secondary school or less). Of
the mothers, 73.1% were unmarried and 62.7% were not working. Pregnancy was due
to rape in 28.4% and due to incest in 4.5% of the cases. The primary reasons of
abandonment were social reasons (62.7%), among which peer pressure (trying to
keep the family members unaware of the pregnancy) was the most frequent (78%). It
was observed that the rate of baby abandonment increased as the educational
levels of the mothers decreased (p<0.05).
Conclusion: In this study, the primary factor for abandonment was
peer pressure. There is certainly a vast need to multiply this kind of studies
on baby abandonment. This study could be considered as a preliminary approach
providing tips about the reasons of the baby abandonment.
Keywords: Abandonment, Newborn, Babies, Sociodemographic, Mothers
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